Boston Unitarian

Lincoln...

2012-02-12T08:34:00.002-04:00

O for an Abraham Lincoln today...

blessings

lay on more fuel...

2012-02-09T08:09:00.003-04:00

This from the 19th Century Unitarian Devotional, "Day Unto Day" often excerpted in these pages...

"My strength faileth because of mine iniquity. — Pa. xxxi. 10.

Oh, say not so! thou canst not tell what strength
Thy God may give thee at the length;
Renew thy vows; and if thou keep the last,
Thy God will pardon all that's past.
Vow while thou canst, while thou canst, vow; thou
may'st Perhaps perform it when thou thinkest least.
George Herbert.

"When a man is to run a race of forty furlongs, would you have him sit down at the nine and thirtieth, and so lose the prize. We do not keep a good fire all day. and let it go out in the evening when it is coldest; but then rather lay on more fuel, that we may go warm to bed." — But "He that is strong with his own strength falls before temptation; he is humbled in the dust. . . . Whence is our strength? From God alone."

The God of Israel is He that giveth strength and power unto His people. Blessed be God. —Pa. 1xviii. 35."

Blessings

dreadfully...

2012-02-08T07:40:00.003-04:00

Over at her "Unitarian Universalist Quotes" Blog, Rev. Naomi King posts the greatest quote I have heard for some time.

"Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this – that you are dreadfully like other people."
James Russall Lowell
(pictured)

Amen
(and thanks)

highly risqué...

2012-02-07T15:18:00.009-04:00

Dean Grodzins, in an excellent essay included in the truly outstanding "Oxford Handbook of Transcendentalism" rightly describes the central difference between traditionalist Unitarians and the Transcendentalists as being centered in "the distinction...between two different kinds of religion, one "natural" and the other "revealed." He relates the following story to illustrate the point...

"In 1840, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller saw the Austrian ballerina Fanny Eissler dance-a performance that proper boston thought hightly risqué. They were very impressed. According to a story that made the rounds, Fuller told Emerson, "This is religion!" A Boston Unitarian lady, hearing the tale, exclaimed with a laugh" 'Both natural and revealed!'

Blessings

women are now everywhere...

2012-02-01T10:49:00.002-04:00

I preached a sermon a couple of weeks ago comparing football coach and commentator Jimmy Johnson, Henry David Thoreau, and Jane Austen, a central part of which was my changing view of the latter. Jane Austen has become, for me, the greatest of novelists and I think I am a little in love with her...
In Googling Jane Austen and Unitarian, I came across this article from "The Unitarian Magazine" (1888) called "The Intellectual Development of Women." Interesting for the day...

"Women have succeeded as novelists because this kind of writing enables them to use the knowledge which is most easily within their reach, because of their large social experience and observation, and because it makes no great demand on wide reading and large educational attainments. Fiction requires in its production an interest in persons, which women have in a larger degree than men; and it is promoted by their love of the personalities and the sympathetic interests of life. Women possess the narrative or storytelling gift in much perfection; and this is especially required in thp writing of novels. It is owing to the influence of women, to a large extent, that a genuine realism in lictioii has been developed, a realism which is in sympathy with human nature, and which interprets the common life of humanity. The two most successful writers of realistic novels in England have been Jane Austen and George Eliot.

In poetry, women have always manifested three remarkable tendencies: the acceptance of a pure and ideal love of man and woman as the basis of their work, the interpretation of daily life with sympathy and affection, and the giving their singing an emotional richness and beauty of the highest type. [jln the fragmentary remnants of that . greatest of lyrical poets, Sappho; in the sonnets of Vittoria Colonna, the friend and inspirer of Michael Angelo, and in the poetry of Mrs. Browning, we find the same characteristic features of a pure and consecrated affection for a great man, a tender and yearning interest in human beings, an intimate sympathy with the beauties of nature, and a lofty moral purity. These are qualities which women have embodied in some, of the most delicate and sympathetic poetry we possess; and they are qualities which women are more and more, with each generation, adding to the poetry of human existence.

In the fields of general literature women have shown talent, courage and skill. Such women as Madame de Staël and Harriet Martineauhave shown that genius is not confined to the masculine sex, and that intellectual industry may go hand in hand with womanly graces of a refined and delicate type.

The intellectual influence of women has been shown, not so much by the number of great thinkers and authors which have appeared among them, as by their general influence on the life of the last three centuries. The number of women of great intellectual gifts is limited, at least so far as the literary manifestations of those gifts are concerned, and but few great books have been written by women; but the general literary habit and taste which characterize our time are very largely the product of the influence exercised by women. They have been of the ut most importance to literature in creating a reading public, and in giving to authors that sympathy and appreciation which are necessary to the best results.

In the early days of Samuel Johnson, to take a single not remote example, literature had a most precarious existence, dependent upon patronage or else leading to beggary. Johnson's own career was full of bitterness and humiliation; for he was a denizen of Gnib Street, and Grub Street meant all that was distressing and abject, at that period, in the life of an intellectual man. Johnson broke away from the slavery of patronage, and established the career of literature upon an independent basis. One most important condition existed in his day, which enabled him to do this; and that was the influence of educated and intelligent women, who gave him a reading public. As soon as women were educated in considerable numbers a great reading public was created, and authorship became an independent and self-respecting profession.

Women are now everywhere, in civilized countries, the chief sustainors of the intellectual life; they form the great body of church goers, lectnre attendants, readers of books and teachers of the young. Women as a mass now give to literature and to ideas far more of time and appreciation than do the mass of men. If they have not as yet become the intellectual leaders of the world, they exercise a very great influence in giving tone and direction to the literary spirit of the time."

Blessings

rest...

2012-01-26T08:15:00.001-04:00

This poem by Unitarian minister, translator and eminent musicologist John Sullivan Dwight was well read this morning. Truer words...

"    Is not true leisure
  One with true toil?

    Rest is not quitting
  The busy career,
Rest is the fitting
  Of self to one’s sphere.

    ’T is the brook’s motion,
  Clear without strife,
Fleeing to ocean
  After its life.

    ’T is loving and serving
  The Highest and Best!
’T is onwards! unswerving,
  And that is true rest.

    Work, and thou wilt bless the day
  Ere the toil be done;
They that work not, can not pray,
  Can not feel the sun.

God is living, working still,
  All things work and move;
Work, or lose the power to will,
  Lose the power to love."

blessings

sawing wood...

2012-01-19T12:41:00.000-04:00

This from the biography of John Sullivan Dwight discussing his years at Harvard Divinity School...

"In the Divinity School, as in the college, Dwight's one great interest was music. Near his own were the rooms of his lifelong friends, Theodore Parker and Christopher P. Cranch. Parker had no love of music and no capacity for its production, but Cranch was only less devoted to it than Dwight. When the two music-lovers were one evening playing together, they heard a great din in the hall. On Dwight's opening the door, Parker was discovered sawing wood. When asked why he was so engaged in that place, he replied, "You disturb me with your music when I wish to study, and I will have my fun in return." He kept on with his sawing until the music was silenced."

Blessings

a one and a two...

2012-01-18T09:29:00.001-04:00

Music has always been a deeply important part of my life. My father was a high school band director before becoming a school administrator and from as early as I can remember I sang in church and school, played the trumpet through high school (braces did a number on my trumpet playing)and played guitar in bands including the "Lightbulbs"-I'm sure you have heard of us...) As an adult I have tried to teach myself the cello (mostly a failure) and am now immersing myself in the recorder. My children are all singers and budding musicians playing flute, cello, piano, and trumpet.
I try very hard to appreciate the incredible blessing that modern times are in regards to music. When I want to listen to the greatest music ever written and performed I have only to push a button. This blessing, of course, has within it a curse. Many years ago, people had to play music in order to hear it. It's scarcity engendered a truer appreciation...
The Boston Unitarians and the Transcendentalists had various reactions to music. Thoreau loved his flute while Emerson had virtually no ear for music at all. Of all the Boston Transcendentalists, only John Sullivan Dwight dedicated himself to music.
An early champion of Beethoven, Dwight created and edited "Dwight's Journal of Music" for which this was the founding statement:

"The tone to be impartial, independent, catholic, conciliatory, aloof from musical clique and controversy, cordial to all good things, but not eager to chime in with any powerful private interest of publisher, professor, concert-giver, manager, society, or party. This paper would make itself the 'organ' of no school or class, but simply an organ of what may be called the Musical Movement in our country, of the growing love of deep and genuine music, of the growing consciousness that music, first amid other forms of Art, is intimately connected with Man's truest life and destiny. It will insist much on the claims of 'Classical' music, and point out its beauties and its meanings, not with a pedantic partiality, but because the enduring needs always to be held up in contrast with the ephemeral. But it will also aim to recognize what good there is in styles more simple, popular, or modern, will give him who is Italian in his tastes an equal hearing with the German, and will even print the articles of those opposed to the partialities or the opinions of the editor, provided they be written briefly, decently, and to the point."

More on Dwight to come...
Blessings

Marking the Hours...

2012-01-10T20:05:00.000-04:00

Like most Unitarians, I have a strong Anglo-Catholic side...In that spirit I recommend highly "Marking the Hours: English People and their Prayers 1240-1570" by the Catholic scholar Eamon Duffy. It is a riveting read.

Blessings
(I suppose it is just barely possible that most Unitarians don't have a strong Anglo-Catholic side but the book is still a great read!)

irreparable solitude...

2012-01-05T08:39:00.000-04:00

This from William Alger's "The Solitudes of Nature and of Man: or the Loneliness of Human Life"

"Every man wrestles with his fate not in the public amphitheatre, but in the profoundest secrecy. The world sees him only as he comes forth from the concealed conflict, a blooming victor or a haggard victim. We hate or pity, we strive or sleep, we laugh or bleed, we sigh and yearn ; but still in impassable separation, like unvisiting isles here and there dotting the sea of life, with sounding straits between us. It is a solemn truth that, in spite of his manifold intercourses, and after all his gossip is done, every man, in what is most himself, and in what is deepest in his spiritual relationships, lives alone. So thoroughly immersed is the veritable heart behind the triple thickness of individual destiny, insulating unlikeness and suspicion, that only the fewest genuine communications pass and repass; rarely in unreserved confidence is the drawbridge lowered, and the portcullis raised... Occasionally, urged by overstress of curiosity and tenderness, taking the dearest ones we know by the hand, we gaze beseechingly into their eyes, sounding those limpid depths, if haply, reading the inmost soul, we may discern there a mysterious thought and fondness, answering to those so unspeakably felt in our own. But again and again we turn away, at last, with a long-drawn breath, sighing, alas, alas! No solicitation can woo, no power can force, admission to that final inviolate sanctuary of being where the personality dwells in irreparable solitude."

Have a nice day and...
Blessings

the true destiny...

2012-01-02T11:59:00.002-04:00

This from William Alger, cousin of Horatio, and a Unitarian Minister. He did much fascinating work not least this book, "The Solitudes of Nature and of Man: or the Loneliness of Human Life." I have been reading this book with amazement the last couple of days.

"The true destiny of man is the fruition of the functions of his being, the purest and fullest exercise of his faculties, in their due order, in internal unity and in external harmony. He should therefore seek to perfect himself in the light of the great standards of truth, virtue, beauty, humanity, and God ; and to be contented with himself as reflected by these standards. To seek, instead of this, to see himself flatteringly reflected in the estimation of other people, in whose judgments these standards are often refracted in broken distortions, is the sure way to wretchedness. He who aims at perfection, going out and up in thought and feeling from his defects to its standards, will be happy. He who aims at fame, coming down in thought and feeling from his rich desires to the poor facts, will be miserable. Happiness is the successful pursuit of an aim. Perfection is the grandest of aims, and the only one in which a continuous success is morally possible for all. The happiest of men are the saints and mystics, in whom the social exactions of self are lost in a fruition of the sublimest standard; each wave of force goes out and dies in ecstasyvon a shoreless good. But the selfish plotter feels each wave of force rise and move inward to die, with egotistic disgust, of extinction in the centre. Whoever would live contented and die happy must not pursue public applause, but must give more than is given him, and love without asking a return."

Blessings

the world is a proud place...

2011-12-30T08:49:00.002-04:00

Longtime readers of this space know of my love for Plutarch and may have seen my "Plutarch Blog" at: http://2milejournal.blogspot.com/. After a short break, I am back at work on Brother Plutarch and will be posting on the "Moralia" pretty regularly. I urge you to visit periodically. I will also be posting from one of my all-time favorite books, "Emerson's Plutarch" by Edmund G. Berry. Why Plutarch? This from Emerson explains a bit...

"Go with mean people and you think life is mean. Then read Plutarch, and the world is a proud place, peopled with men of positive quality, and with heroes and demigods standing around us, who will not let us sleep."

If it naive to want to believe in the world as a "proud place" when all about it appears "mean" then count me among the naive...

Blessings

misappropriation and superficiality...

2011-12-19T09:56:00.000-04:00

Readers of this space know that I love Ralph Waldo and the Transcendentalists. This, however, is a love that is not blind. The fascinating Orestes Brownson (as discussed by Arthur Verslouis in his "American Transcendentalists and Asian Religions" gets to the heart-or at least one of the hearts-of areas where RWE and the gang give me pause. Brownson, of course, carved his way through the liberal Protestant landscape before embracing authority and the Roman Catholic Church...

"In brief (writes Verslouis) Brownson's criticism is that Transcendentalism takes rhetorically for itself the highest stations attainable within the various traditions and offers no effective means for realizing those stations. And in this respect Brownson's critique is indeed valuable, as each of the traditions on which Emersonian Transcendentalism draws depends on following a particular path. So if one were to choose among its teachings without having followed that path, one could certainly be accused of doing the given tradition an injustice. Much better, says Brownson, to enter into one of those paths-in particular, that of the church-and to follow it. One at least avoids the sin of misappropriation and superficiality."

Blessings

life is but a dream sweetheart...

2011-12-14T15:48:00.003-04:00

My posting recently has been sporadic which means, unfortunately, the same for my devotional life. One idea, however, has been going around in my head the past few days. I am reading much right now on the Transcendentalists and "Asian Religions" (right now Arthur Versluis', "American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions'" and a persistent issue is Emerson's perceived romantic self-centerdness. Verslouis writes of Emerson's use of the idea of Maya and "illusion" to "transcend" this problem:

"...there is another subtle but important ramification to his affirmation of maya's or illusion's, universality: Through this recognition of the universality of illusion, Emerson is able to affirm the illusory nature of the individual self as well and thus to avoid the tendency toward solipsism that so haunts English and to some extent European Romanticism. After all, the logical conclusion of the doctrine of maya must be that the individual ego is also contigent, that if the external world is a dream, then so are we ourselves. If the essence of the Romantic fallacy was the psychologizing internalization of religious truth, then by denying the ultimate reality of the ego, Emerson is effectively transcending the fundamental trap of Romanticism.

According to Emerson, man is truly man only when he transcends his limited self; man is meant to be more than man, to be a 'transparent eyeball' (using an echo of a Plotinian phrase), to be a 'god' sitting among 'gods,' or not to be an 'I' at all. Many critics have suggested that Emerson was fundamentally an egoist, and no doubt this is true, for as Nakagawa Soen Roshi once said, we are all egoists. But insufficient attention has been paid to Emerson's focus on transcending the self, for it is here, on the poet's illuminaation or inspiration, that Emerson's works are often actually centered. Pivotal here are Platonism and the Vedanta."

The line between self absorption and self transcendence is a fine line indeed and maybe the chief role of religion is to illuminate that line...

Blessings

to triumph over old age

2011-11-30T22:35:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the birthday of Amos Bronson Alcott, most infuriating of the Transcendentalists, who wrote...

"To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old age."

Blessings

the most dependent creature on earth...

2011-11-29T07:35:00.001-04:00

Ephraim Peabody tells us that the more "advanced" a civilization becomes, the more dependent we humans become. Yesterday's Advent Sermon continued...

"1. I call attention to the general fact that every increase of faculty, though it increases power, involves also an increase of needs. The stone in the quarry has no needs whatsoever. The air folds it round about, the rains fall on it, the sunbeams glow and flame on its surface, but the rock remains impassive, needing none of them. The tree adds to dead matter the element of organizing life, and air, rain and sunshine are essential to its existence. With the added faculties of animal life come added and corresponding needs. In man there is a sudden and vast enlargement of faculty, but with it an equal multiplication of the points of dependence on what is external to himself. Man, the most powerful, is also the most dependent creature on earth. The general law follows him into the spiritual life. The brute has neither hope nor fear for the morrow; but man is tortured by remorseful memories, is racked by anxieties, is at the mercy of hope and fear, lives a needy mendicant on human affections, his soul is awed by conscious relations with God, he recoils from the mysteries of the grave, and treads with trembling the borders of the eternal world. He is in the midst of the vast agencies of Nature and of God, and by the very intelligence which raises him above the animal, is made conscious of his weakness and dependence. And now, going one step farther, I add, that the higher the culture, the greater the needs... One might almost describe civilization as a condition of multiplied needs—physically, mentally, morally, a condition of multiplied needs. It is no accident, but the merciful law of God, that the same civilization which develops individual power shall create the restraints of dependence and the humanizing influences of mutual needs. Thus culture invariably increases need. It awakens the sensibilities, it gives them a keener edge, it multiplies their demands, it carries a man out of himself, and connects his wellbeing with a constantly enlarging circle of influences external to himself—making him at the same time more self-subsistent and more dependent."

More tomorrow...

Blessings

the culture of our higher faculties...

2011-11-28T12:02:00.001-04:00

I have read a fair number of 19th Century Unitarian Sermons in my time and a recurring theme, I think it safe to say, is the desire to square the Christian revelation with the increasing secularism and perceived rise in "the general activity of the intellect" of the time.

This an Advent collect and part one of a sermon from the more conservative end of the "squaring." It is by a Boston Unitarian staple, Ephraim Peabody...

ADVENT. Collect.

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty, to judge both the living and dead, we may rise to the life immortal. And this we beg in the name of our Mediator; though whom we ascribe unto Thee all honour and glory, now and ever. Amen.

THE NEED OF A DIVINE REVELATION INCREASES WITH THE PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION.

A SERMON FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

"But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. Rom. xiii. 14.

In entering upon that period of the year which calls our attention to the advent of Christ and the beneficent influence of his religion in past ages, it becomes us to consider it in its relation to the wants of our own time. The fundamental characteristic of the age, the source of many other characteristics, and fostered by what itself creates, is the immense and general activity of the intellect, and the direction of this activity to secular affairs. By the education of schools and the severer education of practical life, by individual freedom, by the multiplied and multiplying careers open to the enterprising and aspiring, by the poverty which rebels against its restrictions, by the luxury which would make the world tributary to its pleasures, by the prizes held out on every side to the clear mind and the energetic will, the general intellect is stimulated to an activity in secular pursuits such as the world never saw before. One of the results of this intellectual and secular activity is seen in the theory, that, in some inexplicable way, the advance of knowledge supersedes the necessity of revelation; that, in the growing light of civilization, Christianity is less needed, that it is becoming obsolete, that it has been a good religion for rude ages, that it is good now for the ignorant, but that the intelligent and the cultivated may find, in the study of nature and the human heart, what answers their purposes quite as well and is more satisfactory.

The text, taken from the lesson of the day, implies that, in putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, we are laying aside what is low and sensual, and making provision for the higher faculties of our nature. The inference from this is, that in proportion to the culture of our higher faculties will be our need of His religion and the extent of its influence over us.

The precise point, however, which I would urge, is this ;—that the increased intellectual activity of the age, instead of diminishing, increases the need of an authoritative religious revelation, both in regard to the faith and practice of men."

Blessings

renew thyself...

2011-11-27T06:54:00.002-04:00

This from "Walden."

"Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub of King Tching Thang to this effect: "Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again." I can understand that. Morning brings back the heroic ages"

Amen and blessings

eulogy of courtesy...

2011-11-25T08:44:00.002-04:00

This on Emerson's "gentility" excerpted from Christy's "The Orient in American Transcendentalism." To be a gentleman...

"For a Philosopher," wrote Walt Whitman, "Emerson possesses a singularly dandified theory of Manners"...Emerson consistently kept insisting that the outward man was an expression of the inward, nevertheles. He was perfectly aware that he went furthuer than his countrymen in his insistence on courtesy and manners...

Emerson defended his own emphasis stoutly:

"We may easily seem ridiculous in our eulogy of courtesy, whenever we insist on benevolence as its foundation. The painted phantasm Fashion rises to cast a species of derision on what we say. But I will neither be driven from some allowance to Fashion as a symbolic insititution, nor from the belief that love is the basis of courtesy. We must obtain that, if we can; but by all means we must affirm this."

The reason for Emerson's eulogy of courtesy...was the belief that man can only become inwardly perfect by expressing himself perfectly in outward manner."

Blessings

2011-11-24T09:30:00.000-04:00

This from Henry David...

"My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contended one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence."

Amen and blessings to all

Cool, cool water...

2011-11-23T08:26:00.001-04:00

Though I almost never post anything from later than the last century and a half, I offer this under the category of family pride. It is a video done by our 5th and 6th grade class of which son Henry is a member and spouse Carrie is a teacher. The video was filmed, compiled and edited by daughter Molly. It was "premiered" at our Guest at Your Table kickoff...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YkL3YXH8ag&feature=youtube_gdata

blessings

the whole of our lives...

2011-11-22T14:53:00.002-04:00

This "Thanksgiving Song" by Henry Ware Jr...

"THANKSGIVING SONG.

November, 1840. Tune, Sandy And Jenny.

Come, uncles and cousins; come, nieces and aunts;

Come, nephews and brothers, — no wonts and no cants:

Put business, and shopping, and school-books away;

The year has rolled round; — it is Thanksgiving-day.

Come home from the college, ye ringlet-haired youth,
Come home from your factories, Ann, Kate, and Ruth;
From the anvil, the counter, the farm come away;
Home, home, with you, home; — it is Thanksgiving-day.

The table is spread, and the dinner is dressed;
The cooks and the mothers have all done their best:
No caliph of Bagdad e'er saw such display,
Or dreamed of a treat like our Thanksgiving-day.

Pies, puddings, and custards, pigs, oysters, and nuts, —
Come forward and seize them, without ifs or buts;
Bring none of your slim, little appetites here; —
Thanksgiving-day comes only once in a year.

Thrice welcome the day in its annual round!
What treasures of love in its bosom are found!
New England's high holiday, ancient and dear!
Twould be twice as welcome, if twice in a year.

Now children revisit the darling old place,

And brother and sister, long parted, embrace;

The family ring is united once more,

And the same voices shout at the old cottage door.

The grandfather smiles on the innocent mirth,

And blesses the Power that has guarded his hearth;

He remembers no trouble, he feels no decay,

But thinks his whole life has been Thanksgiving-day.

Then praise for the past and the present we sing,

And trustful await what the future may bring:

Let doubt and repining be banished away,

And the whole of our lives be a Thanksgiving-day."

Blessings

let your feet run...

2011-11-21T10:17:00.001-04:00

"My entire Philosophy," wrote Ralph Waldo to Carlyle, "teaches acquiescence and optimism." It has become my foundational quote and is here fleshed out in RWE's famous, "Oversoul."

"Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul. The simplest person, who in his integrity worships God, becomes God; yet for ever and ever the influx of this better and universal self is new and unsearchable. It inspires awe and astonishment. How dear, how soothing to man, arises the idea of God, peopling the lonely place, effacing the scars of our mistakes and disappointments! When we have broken our god of tradition, and ceased from our god of rhetoric, then may God fire the heart with his presence. It is the doubling of the heart itself, nay, the infinite enlargement of the heart with a power of growth to a new infinity on every side. It inspires in man an infallible trust. He has not the conviction, but the sight, that the best is the true, and may in that thought easily dismiss all particular uncertainties and fears, and adjourn to the sure revelation of time, the solution of his private riddles. He is sure that his welfare is dear to the heart of being. In the presence of law to his mind, he is overflowed with a reliance so universal, that it sweeps away all cherished hopes and the most stable projects of mortal condition in its flood. He believes that he cannot escape from his good. The things that are really for thee gravitate to thee. You are running to seek your friend. Let your feet run, but your mind need not. If you do not find him, will you not acquiesce that it is best you should not find him? for there is a power, which, as it is in you, is in him also, and could therefore very well bring you together, if it were for the best. You are preparing with eagerness to go and render a service to which your talent and your taste invite you, the love of men and the hope of fame. Has it not occurred to you, that you have no right to go, unless you are equally willing to be prevented from going? O, believe, as thou livest, that every sound that is spoken over the round world, which thou oughtest to hear, will vibrate on thine ear! Every proverb, every book, every byword that belongs to thee for aid or comfort, shall surely come home through open or winding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will, but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And this, because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one."

Blessings

Arabian within...

2011-11-16T15:02:00.005-04:00

This on how the Concord Transcendentalists read books found in Arthur Christy's "The Orient in American Transcendentalism" first published in 1932...

"How carefully did the Concordians read books? As a boy barely in his majority, Emerson confessed that his 'cardinal vice of intellectual dissipation' was 'sinful strolling from book to book, from care to idleness.' He added that with this malady he belonged to the incurables. Over two decades later, in 1843, he was still uncured. Some one must have taunted his with the remark, 'Your reading is irrelevant.' Emerson's answer was defiant. 'Yes, for you, but not for me. It makes no difference what I read. If it is irrelevant, I read it deeper. I read it until it is pertinent to me and mine...A good scholar will find Aristophanes and Hafiz and Rabelais full of American history.' Elsewhere he explained his meaning in other terms. 'Only so much of Arabian history can I read as I am Arabian within."

Blessings

the gentleman and scholar...

2011-11-11T10:00:00.000-04:00

Ephraim Emerton (18 February 1851 – 3 March 1935), scholar, devout Unitarian, teacher and writer on the kind of education that nourished the "Gentleman and Scholar"...

"If we try to analyze this somewhat vague conception, we find that the essential quality of this earlier education was that it was in no sense professional. That is what men tried to express by the word "liberal," a word one hesitates now to use, because one fears to be understood as thereby describing all other education as "illiberal." No such opposition was ever intended, nor was it felt by the generations which came and went under those conditions. They rejoiced in the privilege of spending a certain period of youth in studies and in a mental attitude which had in view no direct practical use of what they were acquiring; in other words, no professional or technical aim. At the conclusion of that period they were not, and knew they were not, fitted to carry on any given work of life. They did believe, however, that they had made the best preparation for living, no matter what specific line of work they might follow. If, at that moment, they were to enter the world of scholarship, they were without technical training in any field. That was all to come, and they were as ready to begin the necessary professional discipline in their way as were the lawyer, the physician, and the engineer in theirs.

What they had had was a chance to fix solidly in their mental character the largeness and the beauty of the intellectual life. They had had time to think and to ripen without concern as to just whither their thinking and their unconscious development were leading them. No matter into what direction they might now turn their activity, they were bound to carry with them that essential thing which, for lack of a better name, we agreed to call the liberal spirit. If they had made a proper use of their chance they could never be mere specialists in their field. Their special and technical skill must always be infused with that higher and larger spirit of culture to which the professional spirit is always and necessarily more or less antagonistic. Expressed in terms of the inner life, such a scholar was, and was felt to be, a gentleman. No one cared what his origin might be. There was no fixed type to which he was forced to correspond. There might be endless diversity in his outward expression of himself; only, through all diversity and with every allowance made for original advantage or disadvantage, there was the inevitable stamp of the gentleman and the scholar."

Blessings

the unity of all nature...

2011-11-01T13:56:00.001-04:00

Ralph Waldo in "Emerson's Plutarch" by Edmund G. Berry.

"Emerson's earlier Stoicism is orthodox Roman in its doctrine of God within man and it is also pantheism, since God is in all nature and nature includes man. Some of the Stoics used in defending themselves against the charge of pantheism an argument which Emerson later could have used when the same charge was made against him, but he would have regarded the argument as quibbling and evasion; the Stoics said that God is in the universe and hence in man but He is not evenly distributed throughtout the universe. There is deity in all things but, said the Stoics, "as a man is called wise, being wise in mind, though he consists of mind and body; so the world is called God from its soul, though it consists of soul and body. Only at a later stage in his thinking, after he had achieved a state of mind something like Stoic equanimity, or to put it in another way, after his religion had been toned down so that it consisted of not much more that Stoic ethics, did Emerson cautiously approach the Stoic solution to the problem of the relation of man, nature, and God. In the essay "Worship" in "The Conduct of Life," Emerson speaks of "God's delegating his divinity to every particle." This certainly sounds Stoic but the term delegating is perhaps carefully chosen; the particle is not itself God as the Stoics would have it. Emerson still shies away from a full acceptance of Stoicism; rather ihis solution is Platonic and Christian-and it is surprising that h3e has not adopted it before: "Man is the image of God." Still, he adds, "there is no flaw in either Epicurianism or Stoicism."
This Plutarchan blend of Platonism and Stoicism lies not far below the surface of much of Emerson's thought about man and God. It appears in his doctrine of face, for to Emerson and the Stoics, the unity of all nature provides, or itself is, a natural necessity."

Blessings

Put them all down?...

2011-10-21T08:05:00.000-04:00

For when we think that progress is never made...

Thoreua in a letter to Harrison Blake: "They have a census table in which the put down the number of the insane. Do you believe that they put them all down there?

And this the accompanying note by Bradley Dean: "The 1850 Census forms had a column for "deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper or convict'; the census taker in Concord listed two deaf and dumb, one blind, five insane, one idiotic, eight paupers, and five convicts among the 2,249 residents."

blessings

The common level...

2011-10-18T20:15:00.001-04:00

One more from HDT...

"It is worth the while to live respectably unto ourselves. We can possibly get along with a neighbor, even with a bedfellow, whom we respect but very little; but as soon as it comes to this, that we do not respect ourselves, then we do not get along at all, no matter how much we are paid for halting. There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself; but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life."

blessings

Rotting potatoes...

2011-10-17T13:10:00.002-04:00

This, briefly, from Thoreau's "Letters from a Spritual Seeker"

I have had but one spiritual birth (excuse the word,)and now whether it rains or snows, whether I laugh or cry, fall farther below or approach nearer my standard, whether Pierce or Scott is elected,-not a new scintillation of light flashes on me, but ever and anon, though with longer intervals, the same surprising & everlasting new light dawns upon me, with only such variations as in the coming of the natural day, with which indeed, it is often coincident.

As to how to preserve potatoes from rotting, your opinion may change from year to year, but as to how to preserve your soul from rotting, I have nothing to learn but something to practice.

Blessings

home-made divineness...

2011-10-15T07:34:00.002-04:00

My current devotional reading includes Thoreau's "Letters to a Spiritual Seeker," edited by the late Bradley Dean. It is a wonderful volume (not least for the copious notes provided by Dean) and vital in understanding Thoreau's religion. This morning I was deeply struck by the profound importance of "expectation" in HDT's thought and life...

"Is not the attitude of expectation somewhat divine-a sort of home-made divineness? Does it not compel a kind of sphere music to attend on it? and do not it's satisfactions merge at length by insensible degrees in the enjoyment of the thing expected?"

Blessings

aspire...

2011-10-13T06:51:00.000-04:00

Thoreau...

"If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated?"

blessings

Let the beautiful laws prevail...

2011-10-12T18:17:00.003-04:00

A little on the tired side today and thinking of a particular passage from Thoreau that I finally tracked down...

"Who are poor and dependent? Who are rich and independent? When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality? Why should the appearance appear? Are we well acquainted, then, with the reality? There is none who does not lie hourly in the respect he pays to false appearance. How sweet it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they are! We wonder that the sinner does not confess his sin. When we are weary with travel, we lay down on our load and rest by the wayside. So when we are weary with the burden of life, why do we not lay down this load of falsehoods which we have volunteered to sustain, and be refreshed as never mortal was? Let the beautiful laws prevail!"

Amen and blessings

The undulations of celestial music...

2011-10-08T06:59:00.001-04:00

Thoreau's great call for living the day...

"The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night. Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air--to a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light. That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way. After a partial cessation of his sensuous life, the soul of man, or its organs rather, are reinvigorated each day, and his Genius tries again what noble life it can make. All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The Vedas say, "All intelligences awake with the morning." Poetry and art, and the fairest and most memorable of the actions of men, date from such an hour. All poets and heroes, like Memnon, are the children of Aurora, and emit their music at sunrise. To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators. If they had not been overcome with drowsiness, they would have performed something. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?"

Blessings

most complete...

2011-10-07T12:09:00.001-04:00

I think it was Mark Twain who, when asked about the controversy over who really wrote the books attributed to Homer, said, "If Homer didnt write them, some other guy named Homer did" (that is, I think, a paraphrase.) The first essay in Plutarch's "Morals," "On the Education of Children" was probably not written by Plutarch but by some other guy named Plutarch. This an excerpt...

"...we ought to make philosophy the chief of all our learning. For though, in order to the welfare of the body, the industry of men hath found out two arts, — medicine, which assists to the recovery of lost health and gymnastics, which help us to attain a sound constitution, — yet there is but one remedy for the distempers and diseases of the mind, and that is philosophy. For by the advice and assistance thereof it is that we come to understand what is honest, and what dishonest; what is just, and what unjust; in a word, what we are to seek, and what to avoid. We learn by it how we are to demean ourselves towards the Gods, towards our parents, our elders, the laws, strangers, governors, friends, wives, children, and servants. That is, we are to worship the Gods, to honor our parents, to reverence our elders, to be subject to the laws, to obey our governors, to love our friends, to use sobriety towards our wives, to be affectionate to our children, and not to treat our servants insolently; and (which is the chiefest lesson of all) not to be overjoyed in prosperity nor too much dejected in adversity; not to be dissolute in our pleasures, nor in our anger to be transported with brutish rage and fury. These things I account the principal advantages which we gain by philosophy. For to use prosperity generously is the part of a man; to manage it so as to decline envy, of a well governed man; to master our pleasures by reason is the property of wise men; and to moderate anger is the attainment only of extraordinary men. But those of all men I count most complete, who know how to mix and temper the managery of civil affairs with philosophy; seeing they are thereby masters of two of the greatest good things that are, — a life of public usefulness as statesmen, and a life of calm tranquillity as students of philosophy. For, whereas there are three sorts of lives, — the life of action, the life of contemplation, and the life of pleasure, — the man who is utterly abandoned and a slave to pleasure is brutish and mean-spirited; he that spends his time in contemplation without action is an unprofitable man; and he that lives in action and is destitute of philosophy is a rustical man, and commits many absurdities. Wherefore we are to apply our utmost endeavor to enable ourselves for both; that is, to manage public employments, and withal, at convenient seasons, to give ourselves to philosophical studies."

My reading project has been Plutarch (much loved by Emerson and many of the Boston Unitarians) and though the "Lives" have been finished for some time, the start of the Church year has caused some delay in taking up, again, the "Morals." I blog bits I like from my reading of and on Plutarch at Plutarchan Lustres.

Blessings

time is conquered...

2011-10-06T10:51:00.003-04:00

This a poem from Edward Rowland Sill, collected in the volume, "The Poets of Transcendentalism"

"LIFE

Forenoon and afternoon and night, —Forenoon,

And afternoon, and night, — Forenoon, and —

what!

The empty song repeats itself. No more?

Yes, that is Life: make this forenoon sublime,

This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer,

And Time is conquered, and thy crown is won."

Blessings

sit with the hermit in you...

2011-10-05T10:09:00.000-04:00

This from Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Celebration of Intellect"

"If I had young men to reach, I should say to them, Keep the intellect sacred. Revere it. Give all to it. Its oracles countervail all. Attention is its acceptable prayer. Sit low and wait long ; and know that, next to being its minister, like Aristotle, and perhaps better than that, is the profound reception and sympathy, without ambition which secularizes and trades it. Go sit with the Hermit in you, who knows more than you do. You will find life enhanced, and doors opened to grander entertainments. Yet all comes easily that he does, as snow and vapor, heat, wind and light. Power costs nothing to the powerful. I should say to them, Do what you can do. He that draws on his own talent cannot be overshadowed or supplanted. . . . Homage to truth discriminates good and evil. Power never departs from it."

Blessings

Careless of life...

2011-10-04T09:51:00.001-04:00

In the notes to Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Courage," Edward Waldo Emerson remembers Margaret Fuller reporting that Emerson once said to her, "Careful of health, Careless of life, should be our motto."

blessings

the living and sanctifying spirit...

2011-10-03T14:27:00.002-04:00

From John Emery Abbott, the "pious Unitarian" on the Religious Education of children..

"EPHESIANS VI. 4. FATHERS, PROVOKE NOT YOUR CHILDREN TO WRATH, BUT BRING THEM UP IN THE NURTURE AND ADMONITION OF THE LORD.

The general necessity of the Religious Education of children is acknowledged by all; but it is perhaps impossible that its actual importance should be fully realized and adequately felt. The foundation of the moral character is most often laid in the years of childhood; and the progress of life very frequently does little more than develope and fix the principles, harden the habits, and give permanence to the feelings, which were either formed by deliberate care, or caught by accidental influences, during the period of youthful susceptibility. The world is full of temptations, through which, in various measures, all are destined to pass; and nothing can protect the young adventurer amidst the perils and exposures of life, but the early establishment of sound and deep rooted religious principles...

If we inquire into the obstacles which most frequently prevent parents from attending to the religious education of their offspring, we shall find them sometimes to arise from Vanity, which is more desirous of training children in showy accomplishments, than in the solid qualities of a virtuous character; of rendering them graceful and polished in manners, and fascinating in worldly accomplishments, than of giving them the less imposing graces of seriousness, humility, and purity, or kindling in their uncorrupted bosoms, the living and sanctifying spirit of silent and unobtrusive piety."

Blessings

Unless the soul...

2011-10-01T14:07:00.000-04:00

From my morning devotionals. First Andrew Preston Peabody, then the Roman Stoic Seneca...

"CHARACTER-building...is your most imminent duty, and may be your most blessed privilege; and character-building ought to be temple-building,—the framing and perfecting of a sanctuary for the indwelling God, — a sanctuary in whose firm foundation, massive walls, fair proportions, and rich adornings there should be blended strength and beauty."

And Seneca...

"Do you ask where the supreme good dwells? In the soul. And unless the soul be pure and holy, there is no room in it for God"

blessings

all truth shall be sacred...

2011-09-29T13:53:00.000-04:00

This from "The Unitarian" magazine, 1892...

"What is the aim of Unitarianism? No question comes to us oftener than this. Perhaps every independent mind must give in some sense a different answer. The following seems to us concise and true. We think there are few Unitarians who will not heartily assent to it. We give it as our answer to inquirers:—
With Jesus as Leader, with all great prophets of the soul as teachers, and with tho Bible and all inspiring books as sacred scriptures, Unitarianism seeks to establish a Church in which all truth shall be sacred, all men brothers, and all duty divine.
It seeks to destroy sectarianism and to promote Christian unity in the only way in which this can ever be done; namely, by exalting the spirit above the letter, by going down below the sectarian differences of Christians to that which all have in common, by making the essentials of Christianity to consist, not in forms or ceremonies or creeds or doctrinal systems, but, as Jesus did, in simple worship of God and service of man. In this work, the most important, as it believes, that is given to this age to do, it invites all...to join."

Blessings

life is hardly respectable...

2011-09-27T14:57:00.000-04:00

This from Emerson's essay "Worship"...

"Life is hardly respectable,--is it? if it has no generous, guaranteeing task, no duties or affections, that constitute a necessity of existing. Every man's task is his life-preserver."

Blessings

for worship or for death...

2011-09-24T08:14:00.000-04:00

This on preparing for the Sabbath by Henry Ware Jr. from his "How to Spend Holy Time." Also interesting in light of the spiritual/religious discussion...

"The fact is," said he, " Saturday evening is the hardest night in the week to get rid of. 'Tis not exactly reputable or proper to be pushing about in the same way as on other evenings, and yet one does not like to be moped up at home. It is neither work day nor Sunday."
"What is it then 1" said David.
"Why, it's something between the two."
"That's the beauty of it to me," said David, " and the very reason why I like it. It is particularly delightful to have a little season of transition between the common affairs of the world and the sacred duties of the Sabbath. I should not like to rush suddenly and without preparation from the one to the other; and this quiet evening is an excellent time for preparation."
"But for my part," answered Smith, "I do not see that any particular preparation is necessary; and I have heard you say a hundred times, that a good man will live so as to have every day a Sabbath as well as Sunday, and be ready, at one time as well as another, to join immediately in prayer." .
"Not a hundred times, John; perhaps two or three."
"Well, not exactly a hundred, to be sure," said Smith, smiling at David's precise way of correcting his extravagance in speech; "not exactly a hundred times; but I am sure I have heard you say so, and I have heard it from the pulpit."
"Very true; and I will not take it back. A man should make every hour holy, and be every minute prepared for worship or for death. But very few men have ever reached such a perfection; and, therefore, we have no right to act as if we had, and put aside special occasions of preparation. We need them so much the more now, because we hope, by and by, to need them less."
"But don't you suppose that one would get on faster if he were to begin with making all days alike?"
"No, not at all; and for this reason; — if he were to begin so, he would make Sunday like a week day, and not the week days like Sunday; he could not avoid this. And just so it has happened with all that I ever knew attempt to act on this principle. It was perfectly impossible for them to live every day a life of sober, devout, contemplative deportment, such as belongs to the Sabbath and to Heaven: they were not advanced enough in holiness for that; and, therefore, all they could effect toward making all days alike was to make Sunday a common day. By this means they did make all alike, but they deprived themselves of a great aid to religious improvement, and their characters perceptibly lost ground. Instead of getting six more Sabbaths in the week, as they pretended to do, they lost the one they had."

Blessings

Start your own team...

2011-09-20T07:23:00.000-04:00

Emerson chiefly read "for lustres" or bits that inspired his own thought. His biographer James Elliot Cabot reports that he once told "a young admirer" to "Only read to start your own team."

blessings

Pshaw! pshaw!...

2011-09-19T06:40:00.002-04:00

This from Emerson's lecture, "Character" on the Unitarian clergy, and the accompanying note by J.E. Cabot, editor and compilier of RWE's works...

(RWE) "To their great honor, the simple and free minds among our clergy have not resisted the voice of Nature and the advanced perceptions of the mind; and every church divides itself into a liberal and expectant class, on the one side, and an unwilling and conservative class on the other. As it stands with us now, a few clergymen, with a more theological cast of mind, retain the traditions, but they carry them quietly. In general discourse, they are never obtruded."

(and the note.) "Dr. Charles T. Jackson, Mrs. Emerson's brother, when a boy, was, with several others, the pupil of the excellent but eccentric Dr. Alleyne of Duxbury. One Sunday the boys, accompanying their reverend friend to afternoon service in a time of drouth, each carried a large umbrella under his arm. "Boys!" said the Doctor, "what nonsense is this?" Why Doctor, you prayed for rain this morning." "Pshaw! pshaw! boys; its customary!"

Blessings

a chief event of life...

2011-09-17T06:58:00.003-04:00

In a lecture entitled "Character" Ralph Waldo Emerson, speaking of how the universal moral sentiment is imparted, wrote...

"A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us by its large scope. I am in the habit of thinking, - not, I hope, out of a partial experience, but confirmed by what I notice in many lives, - that to every serious mind Providence sends from time to time five or six or seven teachers who are of the first importance to him in the lessons they have to impart. The highest of these not so much give particular knowledge, as they elevate by sentiment and by their habitual grandeur of view"

Who has Providence sent as your teachers?

Blessings

the essential characteristic...

2011-09-16T08:30:00.001-04:00

Ephraim Peabody's "Eternal Life" continued...

"How little meaning (for most) have the Saviour's words, " Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness." Not they who act justly and righteously as a matter of expediency, but they who love it for its perceived, intrinsic excellence, —love it as the artist loves what is beautiful, —love it as the sensualist loves his pleasures, — hunger and thirst for it, and must have its presence within them, or die. Instead of our having any just sense of the Gospel doctrine of life, even the prevailing religious creeds of the world fix the attention on a life in a manner external to the soul, a mere continued existence, and a bliss showered on it from without. They treat of salvation; but often it seems as if it were a salvation of man in his sins, rather than from his sins. As if, were it not for future perdition, the attempt to attain the virtues of the Gospel were an unbearable cross. How little do they give the impression, that in these very spiritual excellences, in this love of them, and in their exercise, in their self-controlling and inspiring presence, is itself the eternal life! That Christ came to impart an'd awaken this life, and that his death becomes our life only as it touches our hearts and awakens in them a spirit like his own, — that then, and then only, are we sharers in the life of Christ, — is "this believed ? Were it believed with anything like the intelligent sincerity with which men believe in the worth of intellectual education, of worldly success, or of good repute among men, the millennium would have come. And yet, if there be any meaning in Christ's words, the first step in religion is the perception of the nature of this spiritual life,—the life described in the Bible as that of faith, — a regenerate and sanctified life...

In a word, to sum up what has been said, — the essential characteristic of the eternal life in the soul is the love of truth and good, and thus of God who is the true and good, and of Christ in whom God is manifest. This is the life of the angels which inspires them in their ministries. It is the heavenly life. It is the bond which unites all the hierarchies of the celestial world. He who hath it has affinities with all the pursuits and pleasures of that sacred nature. The pomps and passions of earth turn back from the closed portals of heaven. No bribes gain admission there. No forms or shows avail. But he who hath in him the eternal life, though a beggar naked and maimed and blind, before him heaven's gates open of themselves. He is no stranger there, for the life that is in him finds there its true sphere and companionship."

Blessings

this side the grave...

2011-09-14T07:40:00.001-04:00

Ephraim Peabody, often excerpted in these pages, has been my companion the past two or three weeks and a valuable companion he has been. This from his sermon "Eternal Life" (to be continued the next couple of days)

ETERNAL LIFE.
I AM COME THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE LIFE, AND THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE IT MORE ABUNDANTLY.—John X. 10.

Here is stated the great end of our Saviour's mission. And yet one is tempted to say, that there is no important subject of which the Gospel treats to which a less heedful attention has been given, than its doctrine of Life.
What was the life which Christ came to impart? The common answer is, The assurance of existence beyond the grave. And certainly he gave this assurance ; and no words can overstate its importance. And yet, though of infinite moment, it was the least essential part of Christ's doctrine.
The misapprehensions respecting this subject have arisen from neglecting the two entirely different senses in which the word is used, — the distinction between the life which Christ came to reveal and the life he came to awaken. He revealed an unending life beyond the grave. But far more than this, and what he dwells on as the chief thing, he came to awaken the Eternal Life in the soul. The nature of this life, the mode in which it is awakened, its relations of dependence on Christ and on God, constitute the great theme of the Gospel. Let us, confining ourselves to a single point, endeavor to gain some definite idea of what our Saviour taught respecting its nature.
In the first place, the life which Christ came to impart is a life which may be possessed and enjoyed in this world: " I am come that men may have life, and have it more abundantly." This describes something very different from the mere revelation of a future state of existence. For his coming was in no sense the cause of man's existence. Again, he makes a distinction between the assurance of a future state, and the life which he imparts, when he says, " I am the resurrection and the life." The resurrection may be unto death, whereas he who believeth in me shall never die. " If a man keep my sayings, he shall never taste of death." The wicked share in the common resurrection to a future existence. But they are never spoken of as possessing the eternal life. The murderer is to exist hereafter, but the words are, " No murderer hath eternal life abiding in him "; thus showing, that by the phrase " eternal life " something very different is meant from simply eternal existence. In spite of that existence, " the wages of sin is death," but the gift of God is "eternal life." Or, among numberless other passages bearing on the same point, take the single decisive declaration, " He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." He already hath the everlasting life. The phrase is remarkable. And, in order to leave no room for misconception, he adds, " And is passed from death unto life." The death from which Christ came to deliver man is one which may thus fall on him while he lives in the body, and the life which he came to impart, the eternal life, the everlasting life, may begin this side the grave."

Blessings

obedience alone...

2011-09-13T11:59:00.000-04:00

I believe that one of the most neglected aspects of the commonly known Emerson is the absolute centrality of obedience to every aspect of his thought. This from the lecture "Perpetual Forces"

"The forces are infinite. Every one has the might of all, for the secret of the world is that its energies are solidaires; that they work together on a system of mutual aid, all for each and each for all; that the strain made on one point bears on every arch and foundation of the structure. But if you wish to avail yourself of their might, and in like manner if you wish the force of the intellect, the force of the will, you must take their divine direction, not they yours. Obedience alone gives the right to command"

Blessings

pie and the capacity for virtue...

2011-09-12T08:27:00.001-04:00

Two things more than most put me in an Emerson state of mind-fall and pie. There has been a wonderful fall like nip in the air of late and yesterday my wife made me a "back to Church apple pie" so, this morning, I had my favorite breakfast. I was going to praise Carrie's pie as "the best pie I have ever had" (which I think it is) but then I read Emerson's lecture "The Superlative" which argues for a temperance of expression. As an example of the once famous New England gift for understatement, he relates this story...

"How impatient we are, in these northern latitudes, of looseness and intemperance in speech! Our measure of success is the moderation and low level of an individual's judgment. Doctor Channing's piety and wisdom had such weight that, in Boston, the popular idea of religion was whatever this eminent divine held. But I remember that his best friend, a man of guarded lips, speaking of him in a circle of his admirers, said: "I have known him long, I have studied his character, and I believe him capable of virtue."

So I will just say of my breakfast pie, "It was adequate"

Blessings
(for more on Emerson and pie, go here)

an instrument of spiritual good...

2011-09-11T06:35:00.012-04:00

This "Prayer to be Used by a Sunday School Teacher Before Engaging in Religious Instruction" comes from the Unitarian Prayer collection, "The Altar at Home: Prayers for the Family and the Closet" the 1857 edition...

"0 Thou who seest my whole heart, and knowest all my unfaithfulness, how can I hope, except by thy special blessing and surpassing mercy, to be an instrument of spiritual good, while I am myself so low in spiritual attainments, so worldly, so indifferent, so weak in faith, and so unworthy in thy sight. Yet, 0 my God, thou canst cause the earthen vessel, the broken vessel, the too often dishonored vessel, to receive and convey the balm and medicine of thy heavenly truth, to the praise and glory of thy own name. 0 deign to bless my feeble endeavors and ministrations this day. Let the prayers which shall be poured out be uttered in a believing, contrite, grateful, earnest spirit. Let the words of comment and enforcement which may be offered be words of truth and soberness, conducing to the edification of Christians, and the conviction and renovation of those who as yet believe not.

0 Thou that hast all hearts in thy almighty hand, be pleased so to move and guide my failing mind and heart, and those of others, that we may derive from these means of grace wisdom, and strength, and new devotedness. Fix in my soul, and in every soul present, more forcibly than ever, the practical and prevailing persuasion, that to depend on thy help is indispensable; that to be spiritually-minded is life and peace; that to serve thee in simplicity and godly sincerity, through Jesus Christ, is the way of true freedom and exaltation, of true content and joy; that nothing in the tents or palaces of wickedness or earthly pleasure can compare with the happiness of walking in the light, as thou art in the light. 0 let the blood of Christ purify us from all iniquity; and do thou take away every evil thought and imagination of the heart, confirming each right and self-denying aim and resolve within us, that we may live and die unto the Lord, and be meet for his undefiled home and rest.
Heavenly Father, make all the services of the day, and of the remaining Lord's days which thou mayest grant us upon earth, effectual for these great ends to us and ours, and to all in every place whom we love or ought to love; and bring us all together in the one temple of thy eternal grace and glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen.

Assist us mercifully, 0 Lord, in these our supplications and prayers, and dispose the way of thy servants toward the attainment of everlasting salvation; that among all the changes and chances of this mortal life, they may ever be defended by thy most gracious and ready help, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

Have a blessed Sabbath

Make it honorable...

2011-09-08T11:03:00.000-04:00

Ephraim Peabody's "Stand in thy Lot" concluded...

"Be content to stand in your lot. Whatever it may be, there is work in it enough for one to perform. It is your work, and if done in a Christian spirit there is ample opportunity to build up faith and piety in your own soul, and to bless your fellow-men. If you aspire to what you think a better lot, the way to reach it is by being faithful where you are. But be sure, that no lot to which duty calls you can in its essential nature be excluded from the highest good. A noble spirit ennobles the humblest condition, and a mean spirit alone makes the lot mean. A wonderful fact! It seems as if it had been to disabuse the world, and to exorcise it of its false views of human conditions, that the Saviour of man was born in a manger; that his ministry was in the obscure land of Judaea; that by the way-side, along the lake-shore, among humble men, he subjected himself to poverty; that he washed his disciples' feet; that he died on a cross; and in all places lost not his own divinity, but made the event divine.

Whatever then your lot may be, so that it come to you in the simple way of duty, do not contemn it, but honor it, and by your fidelity in it make it honorable. All real duties come in the order of a providential appointment, and take their character, not from the measurements of human vanity, but from God who appoints them. He can be worshipped as devoutly in the humble way-side church, as in the great cathedral; and so also he may be served as truly in the obcurest duty as in that whose performance wins the plaudits of the world. Leave to others to labor in their lot, and for yourself be satisfied to stand in your own; fulfilling its duties; enlarging it by your fidelity; contented to stand there while it is your lot; there to serve God, and to be useful among men."

Blessings

The silent lives...

2011-09-07T13:28:00.003-04:00

Ephraim Peabody's sermon "Stand in thy Lot" continued...

"A man is dissatisfied with his religious state. He desires more religious life. Where shall he look for it?— I answer, from Christian fidelity in the circle of his daily cares and duties. A Christian principle is established in the soul by being obeyed in practice, and his place of obedience is of course where his duties and temptations lie. He may derive from other sources occasional impulse and instruction, but the obedience must be along the daily path of life. The husbandman goes abroad sometimes to gain information, he tries experiments; but he depends for his harvest on his steady labor...

A man must not look, for his means of doing good to others, to making a few addresses on this or that great reform, — to entering great organizations, — to great, conspicuous, and exceptional acts, — nor to occasional acts of generosity. These are indeed necessary in their place, but the great good which he may wish to do must be done by his habitual life spent amidst its common cares. A man promotes by word and act som% great moral enterprise, and yet, after all, to how little will it amount. But behold him in his daily walk. Here, every day, he comes in contact, in his business, with various persons, in a way which shows the real principles on which he acts, — children, young persons, or those of mature years, like himself. He may say nothing, but it is seen that he will not do a questionable act for the sake of personal gain. He will practise on no man's ignorance. He will take no advantage of men's necessities. Where it is to his loss, he is seen to be as strictly just and true and faithful as when it is for his gain. In all his dealings he is governed by Christian principle. Perhaps he does not at all attempt directly to make others better: he is only a good man himself. And yet, were he to devote himself to some great and extraordinary moral or religious enterprise, he probably would not do so much to raise the moral condition of man as he will by this practice of Christian principle amidst those common duties and temptations where the characters of men are tried. The little child sees his course, and involuntarily respects it, and it becomes a standard by which he will judge of the propriety of actions. The young man, whose principles were not bad, but unsettled, takes courage for the right. Those that do business with him, if for nothing else except that he may respect them, will more or less adopt his principles. Unjust and hard and discreditable customs are shamed away, and grow obsolete. Thus, often, the silent lives of individuals in time raise the character of a whole community."

the perpetual and equal illumination of the sun...

2011-09-06T07:25:00.000-04:00

This from Ephraim Peabody's sermon, "Stand in Thy Lot" continued from yesterday...

"Just so in morals and religion. Men would do good, and think that the means must lie outside the common course of life. The need of a more religious spirit is felt, and it is sought from extraordinary and ever-varying means of excitement. And certainly we will not undervalue these means. Through them deep invasions and permanent conquests have been made in the realms of ignorance and sin ; but they mark the tendency to rely on the novel and the extraordinary. We see the same tendency in the low estimate which men place on the moral opportunities of that sphere of life in which their daily lot is cast. The merchant says, " I have peculiar temptations: it is very difficult for me to be a Christian "; and he thinks if he is to become one, it must be in some changed condition of life. The sailor says, " I have peculiar temptations: it is very hard for one in my place to be a Christian." And every man thinks that his lot is peculiarly exposed and difficult and destitute of moral- opportunity. For the attainment of the Christian character, and the practice of Christian usefulness, he thinks he must look beyond his common sphere of labor and duty to exceptional and extraordinary opportunities. And yet the daily lesson of Providence is to rely on what is common,—.made common, indeed, because the most valuable. Thus Almighty God does not rely for lighting the world on the momentary glare of an occasional meteor, but on the perpetual and equal illumination of the sun. And man, while thankful for every extraordinary aid, must look for his goodness and usefulness chiefly to his use of the common means and opportunities which belong to his special lot."

an illuminated universe...

2011-09-05T09:46:00.002-04:00

I am currently re-reading the "Sermons" of Ephraim Peabody, often excerpted in these pages. The next few days will include bits from his sermon: STAND IN THY LOT.

THOU SHALT REST, AND STAND IN THY LOT AT THE END OF THE
DAYS.—Daniel xii. 13.

"In the text, the Prophet " should stand in his lot, and rest." The words may have a universal application. The infinite variety of human duties cannot all be discharged by the same person. For different duties there must be different men. Thus it is, in the order of Providence, that to different men different lots are assigned, not necessarily better or worse one than another, but different. And in his own lot, and not in another man's, must each one accomplish the true purposes of his existence. He must not dream of some impossible condition, but with a manly heart be content to labor in his appointed lot, — content to find in that, so long as it is his, his usefulness, his happiness, and his virtue. Do not crave what is another's and not yours, but stand in your own lot, be grateful for its privileges, and faithful to its obligations.
The lesson has not lost its significance for our restless, impatient, grasping age. It points to a view of life and duty which it greatly concerns us to consider. There are two principal things for which life is worth living, — personal growth in goodness, and social usefulness. For both these things there is a constant tendency to look beyond the means and opportunities furnished in our appointed walk in life. We rely for goodness and usefulness on opportunities which are rare and exceptional, but neglect as valueless those which come within our actual lot.
Thus in theology we hear of common grace and special grace, of ordinary and extraordinary means of grace ; and yet while it is on the ordinary means of grace that the moral life of man mainly depends, they are neglected and forgotten in the anxiety for those that are extraordinary. And certainly the tendency to overvalue what is unusual is quite natural. That which is extraordinary, though comparatively of inferior moment, strikes the imagination, and for the time makes a great place for itself in the mind. A miracle preserves the life of one man, and the world turns in wonder and reverence to view it, and acknowledges the hand of God ; and it is right and well. Yet at the same moment the ordinary providence of God, moving calmly as the stars, lights up the heavens, gives fertility to the earth, and spreads the table at which the human race sits down, and by which it lives ; and it is not well for us to forget that this ordinary providence of God is a more stupendous manifestation of his glory and goodness than any single miracle can possibly be. A whole country collects to see an illuminated city, and yet the glare of the torchlight which blinds us to the stars hides and makes us forget the more wondrous illumination of the heavens. The throng traverses with unsated gaze the illuminated street, because the spectacle is rare. As it withdraws into the open country, and morning breaks in splendor above the seas, its beams kindling from cloud to cloud till earth and sky are flooded with light, the weary multitude is scarcely conscious of standing under an illuminated universe. This spectacle for the angels is unheeded because it is common."

Hope on...

2011-09-04T07:33:00.000-04:00

I was first exposed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, like most I suppose, through oft anthologized essays such as "Self-Reliance." Over more years than I like to remember I have wrestled with RWE. As I have gotten older, the older more pragmatic Emerson holds greater appeal. I am also, however, starting to read some of his young man sermons with profit. This from a sermon on Matthew 25: 23, "Thou hast been faithful over a few things..."

"Christianity despises nothing because it is small, provided only that it is according to your ability. It says be not discouraged if you find more difficulties in your path to heaven, than in first ardour of youthful resolution, you anticipated. You have aimed at great conquests with too much confidence in yourself, and are dispirited now by apparent failure. Hope on. Be thankful with growing better by small and almost imperceptible acquisitions, only see too it that you husband them well...

My friends, I wish the words of Jesus might prevail with us to direct a new attention and a greater respect to the improvement of our characters by small degrees. What is biggest is made up of minute parts...

Besides, there is no such thing as a small virtue. Virtue is always great, and to the least action which it inspires, it imparts something of grandeur."

Blessings

playing on the seashore...

2011-09-03T07:21:00.001-04:00

Part of my devotions this morning included an early sermon by Ralph Waldo Emerson which, in turn, included this wonderful bit...

"We can hardly quote too often the beautiful saying of that man who knew so mush more than his fellow men, Sir Isaac Newton. "I don't know," he said, "what I may seem to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

blessings

close to the road...

2011-09-02T07:20:00.001-04:00

This from James Freeman Clarke's sermon, "Faithful Over a Few Things"

"But what is the meaning of the word "integrity "? It means thoroughness, entireness; putting the same quality of soul into everything, great and small. No one is a man of integrity who does not do every thing with the same nndeviating honesty, the same unbending principle. The man of real integrity puts the whole energy of conscience, faith, love, into the smallest act as into the greatest. So the steam-engine in a factory exerts the same tremendous power to cut in two an iron bar, or to stick a pin into a card.

Christianity does not allow us to trifle with anything. There is nothing trivial to the illuminated eye and heart of faith. He who says to his brother, "Thou fool!" is in danger of hell-fire. He is, in fact, already in hell-fire; for the feeling of contempt for his brother, the scorn and disdain which can thus reject from its sympathy a fellow-man, is itself the spirit of the pit...

I once heard of a...preacher, who used this plain but striking image in a sermon: "You think, my brethren, that you can go a little way out of God's road into the devil's field, and not be caught, provided you do not go too far. But the devil is not such a fool, when he spreads his nets and sets his traps for you, to put them away in the middle of his field. No: he puts them close to the road: so, if you mean to go a great way or only a little way, he is sure to have you in either case." The illustration was homely; but the doctrine is sound."

Blessings

a higher and holier life...

2011-09-01T09:32:00.000-04:00

This from Ephraim Peabody's "Christian Days and Thoughts"

BEST HOURS.
There are seasons when, for the moment at least, the power of the world seems to drop. A strange and awful sense of responsibility comes upon us. Aspirations rise up out of the soul like the morning mist kindling in the sun as it rises from the mountain top towards heaven. We long for a higher and holier life. The vanity of the world, the worth of virtue, the goodness of God, and the peace of a trusting and devout heart are revealed to us. It is a heavenly vision open before the soul. These hours, when the soul is freed from its bonds, and holds communion with truth and God, and sees revealed the realities of its existence, are blessed hours—hours of heaven— hours which if obeyed shall raise the soul upward to heaven. Repel not the heavenly vision by disobedience. Sacrifice any thing rather than these heavenly impulses. Give up any thing that interferes with carrying them out into the life. These hours of the soul's communion with truth and God are the precious hours of life. They are the scattered fountains in the desert, at which the fainting traveller revives his strength and courage. Then heavenly voices speak, and happy is he who gives heed to the heavenly vision, which is from God, and conduces to God."

Blessings

the deep places in life...

2011-08-31T09:59:00.001-04:00

This from James Freeman Clarke's "The Christian Doctrine of Prayer"

" Experience. — Out of the Depths.
A further preparation may come to us out of the deeper experiences of life. We may pray sincerely, but superficially, from the surface rather than from the depths of the mind. We may pray from our perception of what is right and true, rather than from a deep feeling of it. But when we can say with the Psalmist, " Out of the Depths have I cried unto thee, O God !" then we have achieved also the moral preparation for prayer, the preparation of a moral experience. Then we acquire the habit of prayer out of the deep places of life, and the deep places of the heart.
There are deep places in life. For years we pass on in a circle of routine, until we reach a crisis. Sometimes years of cloudless prosperity are at once interrupted by a succession of troubles, as the smooth stream of a river ia broken by rapids and hurried suddenly down a cataract. The happy family is entered by Death, — father, mother, children, are snatched away from that loving circle. Love is disappointed, — hopes are frustrated, — prosperity ceases, — adversity comes, — sickness despoils us of our energies. In such hours we seem to descend, step by step, into still more profound depths of trial and sorrow. But from these depths the heart sees God more' clearly than from the sunny hill-tops of a happy life, — as persons can see the stars at midday from the bottom of a well. When all around us grows dark, the inward light grows stronger and clearer. When man deceives us, God is faithful. When Death approaches us outwardly, the idea of Immortal Life dawns, in pure auroral light, within the heart. In such hours we learn to pray.
But there are deeps lower than those of trouble and outward affliction, — moments in which, though no external trouble comes near us, inward joy departs. There are depths of scepticism which the soul of man has sometimes to pass, in his pilgrim's progress toward God, — depths in which we lose our faith in God, in man, in ourselves,— in which we ask for the meaning of the world, and find none, — in which all things seem full of vanity and emptiness, and we cause our heart to despair of all its labor which it takes under the sun.- Blacker than Egyptian darkness is this mental gloom, which sometimes settles, for a time, upon the purest and most aspiring minds, —
" A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, nnimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief
In word, or sigh, or tear."

In this condition of scepticism, when we are like children lost in a forest, what can we do but cry to God ? This is the remedy, this the cure. It is not reasoning or argument which can help us in this disease, but Prayer. ' If we have faith enough left to cry to God, Peace and Light may then return to us."

Blessings

the wise man in the storm...

2011-08-27T10:05:00.002-04:00

“The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but deliverance from fear” Ralph Waldo Emerson

That said, I hope all stay safe...Blessings

My soul stretcheth...

2011-08-24T07:02:00.003-04:00

My devotional reading this morning included this wonderful portion of Richard Lucas' (1648-1715) "An Enquiry into Happiness." I get a glimpse of what he speaks while praying in the quiet pews of our church and, often, in reading the Boston Unitarians. "My soul stretcheth"...

"It is true, I am but a Man, that is, a little Atom in the vast Matter, and my Life is but a short Moment in an endless Stream of Time: but then I feel a strange kind of Comprehensiveness in my Soul, it stretcheth forth itself to Times past and to come, it enjoys Things that, are not seen, by Faith and Hope, and sometimes Things that are not at all, by Memory and Fancy ; and tho' my Life is but a Moment, Satisfaction, and Pleasure hath it's Degrees and therefore if I can possess it in its Height and Perfection, I shall live much, tho' not long, I shall enjoy Eternity in a Moment, the World in a little Globe."

Amen and blessings

The mountain and the multitude...

2011-08-23T07:52:00.001-04:00

James Freeman Clarke on praying without ceasing. (not sure he is quite fair to "monks and hermits") but the overall point is a good one...

"Prayer without ceasing.

The Apostles, in their Epistles, frequently refer to Prayer as a necessary part of the Christian life. Unceasing prayer is urged 1 Thess. v. 17. So Eph. vi. 18, " praying always" &c. Phil. iv. 6, " In every thing, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God." 1 Tim. v. 5, the widow is spoken of who continues in supplication and prayer night and day. Rom. xii. 12, " Contine in prayer." Col. iv. 2, " Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving." 1 Peter iv. 7," Be sober, and watch unto prayer." James v. 13, " Is any among you afflicted, let him pray : is he happy, let him sing psalms." Jude i. 20, " But ye, beloved, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God."

This spirit of constant prayer was a natural growth of Christianity ; one peculiarity of which...was to insist on a permanent union of the soul with God, and an immanent presence of the Holy Spirit in the heart, instead of transient inspirations. Hence Christianity is spoken of as a Life ; as a constant, regular activity of the spiritual nature, — " the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus," — " eternal life abiding within us," — God and Christ "coming to make their abode in us." Such is the language of the New Testament.
Therefore, to pray without ceasing intends the unbroken union of the soul with God, so that all of life shall flow from God and to God. It does not mean a life like that of the monks or hermits, in which men retire from the world to devote themselves to formal acts of worship, and to make that the chief business of life : for such exclusive activity of the devotional element would not be as truly unceasing prayer as a life which alternates, like that of Jesus, between the mountain and the multitude. He who does nothing but pray is unable even to do this. His prayer necessarily degenerates into a form, into an outward routine, and so ceases to be prayer. When he takes himself out of life, where is the sphere of Christian duty, he loses the subject-matter for prayer. He has nothing to pray for, except in relation to the moods of his own mind, and therefore his prayer becomes wholly personal; and instead of praying out of an interest in Christ's kingdom, and the coming of his truth in the world, he prays only for himself. Therefore to pray without ceasing is to work for man in constant reliance on God ; to work for Christ, and in every moment of need to look to God for strength wherewith to work. While this habit of intercourse with God is maintained, while we thus bring all parts of our life before Him in thankfulness, penitence, or supplication, we fulfil the command to pray without ceasing."

Blessings

The fleshy instrument...

2011-08-22T07:06:00.002-04:00

As a denomination we talk much about "Social Justice" often to the detriment of the spirit. It is a phenomenon that is not new. The liberal religionists of the 19th century began the process and it's one that James Freeman Clarke warned against. In this excerpt from his "the Christian Doctrine of Prayer" he argues not against working for the betterment of people and the world, but for a remembrance of the spiritual source of that effort.

"Every human being is an immortal soul in a mortal body. That mortal body in a few years will be laid aside, and will have gone to the earth whence it came. It is an organ, for a few years, through which the undying spiritual force within it shall be manifested and shall be developed. That spiritual force, that immortal soul, can draw its life only from God, its fount of being. Without a constant, steady communion with him, it is drawn down by its fleshly instrument, it is immersed in sense, it is buried already in the body which itself is to -be buried in the grave. Inward, toward God, we must go continually for spiritual force, — outward, toward man and life, to exercise it. We must come to know and love God, the sum and substance of all spiritual life, or it is idle to talk of loving man or doing any thing for him. We must have, to give. We must drain from an eternal fountain, from a well that never becomes dry, in order to water the smallest garden or plot of ground."

Blessings

Confusion and every evil work...

2011-08-21T07:23:00.003-04:00

My devotions for today included:

Day Unto Day (a 19th Century Unitarian Devotional)

Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee. — Gen. x iii. 8.

Blest we the suns of peace,
Whose hearts and hopes are one;
Whose kind designs to serve and please
Through all their actions run.
Watts.

To learn to bear and forbear, to prefer to lose the argument rather than the temper, to be willing to suffer a great wrong rather than do the least wrong, to give way to the unfortunate temper of others rather than to gain a point at the cost of a war of words, — a few such plain habits would prevent a world of trouble, and spread joy and happiness throngh scenes where every blessing may be poisoned by the corrosion.of imbittered feelings. — A. A. Livekmore.

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues.
Shakespeare

For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. — Jas. iii. 16,18."

and this from James Freeman Clarke's "Messages of Faith, Hope and Love"...

"The root of the difficulty is the same in all these cases. Indignation against wrong is not joined with sympathy for the wrongdoer. Those who are opposed to each other in opinion keep apart. They know nothing of each other's motives, and hence do injustice to each other. Any amount of intelligence will not save a man from this ignorance of his opponent's motives if he keeps away from him. Meantime the simplest person who hears both sides, and talks with both parties, has a much deeper and wider view of the subject than either. The eloquent leaders, with all their powers of oratory, resource of wit, and trained faculty of speech, have often less real insight of their subject than the unpretending but candid seeker for truth, who refuses to be a partisan, does not abuse his opponents, and can join charity toward the evil-doer with indignation against the wrong."

Blessings

neither justice nor wisdom...

2011-08-20T08:35:00.001-04:00

The very first time I stepped foot in a Unitarian Universalist church was to give a lay sermon on Unitarian Piety. Invited by a couple I had met through a public library book group, I was then an Episcopalian but had read, studied and loved the 19th century Unitarians (the Boston Unitarians) for years. I was listened to respectfully but remember the looks on most of the people's faces who clearly thought I was bringing a message from another planet. I thought of this yesterday when Bill Baar used the words of James Freeman Clarke on Piety to illuminate the massive contrast between the Unitarianism of our past and the UUism of our present. I appreciated that because all these years later, it is still my "mission" to put forward our rich and wonderful history as well as to promote a way of being religious that is so important to my life.

I have also sought to do so with respect. A defining trait of the "Boston Unitarians" though, of course, one not universally shared-one thinks especially of Andrews Norton and Theodore Parker, was their lack of desire to engage in vilification and extreme partisanship. James Freeman Clarke provides a good example of why...

"THE conservatives in our community are a well-disposed set of men, meaning to be just, but, instead of making themselves acquainted with the spirit and motives of reformers, they avoid them, and refuse to associate with them. Instead of noticing the proposition, they impute a bad motive to the proposer. They say that the man is a demagogue; that he seeks notoriety; that he wants office, he wants money. Many others are led by their example into a like unreasoning scorn and invective.
But, if conservatives understand the art of scolding, reformers understand it likewise. This habit has grown to be one of the chief obstacles in the way of reform. A man who is not a reformer goes into some reform meeting, wishing to hear a calm, strong statement of the evils under consideration, the steps tp be taken, practical measures to be discussed, and the duties of friends of the cause. Instead of this, he often hears ridicule and sarcasm against the churches, and sharp witticisms against every person of influence who is supposed not to sympathize with the reformer. He sees neither justice nor wisdom in this torrent of invective, and he is repelled by it. Meantime this is what is most liked and applauded by the reformers themselves. The man who says the sharpest thing is the favorite orator. And, as each class of reformers talk only with each other, this habit increases all the time; and so you have, instead of a great league made up of all the friends of truth, a little coterie who spend their time in scolding, and a great public which goes on its way indifferent to the whole subject."

Not a bad description of what politics and religion has become in America. Its long been my belief that, in their lives and words, people like Clarke and Channing had the only real antidote.

Blessings to all

Spring of improvement...

2011-08-19T05:43:00.001-04:00

The nature, qualities or even the existence of a peculiar "Unitarian Piety" was often discussed by the Boston Unitarians. It is not often spoken of today. And yet it is an idea so crucial to living a religious life. Here is the start of James Freeman Clarke's "Five Kinds Of Piety"

"We love God when we love the highest and best' thing we know; that is, when we look up, not down; up to the Infinite, not down to the finite; up to goodness, not down to wickedness; up to truth, not down to error. By thus looking up to what is higher and better than ourselves we refresh our souls, we purify our hearts, we open them so that Divine influences come in.
A man of piety, therefore, is essentially one who believes in and who loves goodness. A man without piety is one who either does not believe in it or does not love it. The natural culture of piety, therefore, consists in looking up, not down, — looking up to good things, not down to evil things; in contemplating truth rather than error, right rather than wrong, nobleness rather than meanness. Every good and generous act done by man makes it easier to love God and to believe in him; every lie we tell, every act of dishonesty we perform, makes trust in God more difficult, not only to ourselves, but to others. Such great scandals as have recently occurred in the financial world not only make men doubt of human honesty more, but also distrust Divine truth. Every bad action which men do makes humanity seem less lovely, and so makes it harder to love, not only the brother we have seen, but also the God we have not seen.
We see why piety is essential to all real worth. A man without piety is only a part of a man, and is incapable of growing into anything better. A man who never looks up to, adores, reverences superior goodness, has in him no spring of improvement.

Blessings

Salvation!

2011-08-18T10:51:00.002-04:00

Its all about salvation. As always, James Freeman Clarke says it best for me...

"IN every age and every land it has been the universal and profound conviction of Christians that Jesus has been made to them the open way to God; that through him, somehow, they find forgiveness; through him, hope; through him, a new life in their heart and soul.
This is the key to the ardent language of Paul. This is why he forever repeats the name of Christ. This is why he says, We are rooted and grounded in love. To Paul there came from Jesus this divine revelation of a great Fatherhood, and it broke the bonds of his Pharisaic literalism, of his routine religion; took him out of his ritual, ceremonies, texts of Scripture, into a new life of perfect trust and hope and joy. "To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." "The life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God." "I live, but not I: Christ lives in me." Christ to him was the manifestation of a divine tenderness of which he had never before dreamed. So that, no matter what happened to him, he was sitting in heavenly places with Jesus; persecuted, but not forsaken ; cast down, but not destroyed.

And this unspeakable gift was not given to Jesus alone or to Paul alone, but it is given to you and to me. To us the word of this salvation is also sent. Salvation! for what can be more safe than to feel ourselves in the embrace of an infinite love. Salvation! for we know that our sins will be destroyed and our evil cleansed by coming into this heavenly atmosphere of love. Salvation! for how can we continue to sin if we are kept in the presence of our Father?"

Blessings

Happy birthday Sir Walter Scott...

2011-08-16T07:38:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the anniversary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott. Happy birthday and
Many blessings

All the angels of God...

2011-08-10T12:47:00.000-04:00

Part three of
Rev.Bellows on Practical Righteousness.

"We have got, therefore, to believe that while morals are dependent upon faith, and while faith is to be purified by morals, we must keep the two great commandments together, and learn at last that you cannot love man unless you love God, and that you cannot love God unless you love man; that you have got to love in God what is human, and in man what is divine; and that the two commandments must be kept and held close together; that there is no divorce between them possible, and that a mere morality is no morality at all, and a mere piety is no piety at all; but that faith and works, love for God and love for man, are to be kept close, united, inseparable; and that through the strength that faith gives we shall at last do the works of practical righteousness; and through practical righteousness purify and illumine piety. And when our Unitarian body rises to the full dignity of this conception, it will despise all questionings and all doubtings about its having inherent and evangelical piety. It will manifest its evangelical piety in its practical righteousness; and the sect that does that will command the attention of the world. And it is probably only because we do not manifest it in any very eminent degree that we have not the possession of that first place and that leadership that we are always wondering slips out of the hands of people who have such intelligent and rational and simple conceptions of Christian truth and Christian life. Let us live the Unitarian gospel, and it will show itself to be the original gospel of Christ. Let us live the Unitarian gospel; it will be a gospel of practical righteousness. Let us really have the practical righteousness— which we sometimes boast of having — in our personal lives, in our homes, in our business, in our ministry, everywhere that we are; and I tell you, you will not have any longer to wonder, to mourn, or to grieve that your cause does not move forward like lightning towards its final triumph. All the angels of God, all the divine passions of Christ, all the inspirations of the Holy Ghost, follow the track of righteous living; for righteous living is alone possible in the eternal faith of the divine truth and in the image of the Almighty God. Morality is the life of God. It is no earth-born thing. Its roots are in the divine nature. It is living in justice, in truth, in mercy, and in love; and that morality will be the life of heaven; and we shall find that' piety and morality are one, and that they are both bound fast to the throne of God."

Blessings

plaguy hard work getting to heaven...

2011-08-09T10:14:00.003-04:00

Henry Bellows on Practical righteousness continued...

"Let me...exhort you to go home with it deeply impressed upon your minds, that if you want to advance the kingdom of Christ, it must be by producing a higher practical righteousness among yourselves and in your community, in your business, in your homes, and in your church relations, than prevails very extensively or very satisfactorily in any sect or among any body of Christians. We have the deepest necessity at this particular era and time for girding ourselves up for a battle for that only issue that is above all other issues, — the issue between good and evil. There is no other issue worth mentioning, — neither Catholic nor Protestant, neither Orthodox nor Heterodox; but between good and evil we must make our election and declare our choice. We must put our foot upon the evil in men's lives, whether they be high or low, whether they be in the pulpit or among the people, — wherever it be, in God's name and in the name of his Christ, we must put our foot upon moral evil and crush it down with the weight of our lives and with the full force of our example.
I was going down the other day to consecrate a hall which our distinguished patriarch in letters, William C. Bryant, had just presented to the town of Ruslin. Behind me were two men — they were farmers — talking upon the subject of religion; and it was a great comfort to me to know that plain men, in their intercourse with each other in the vehicles of daily business, do sometimes come down to this subject. One of them was saying to the other: "I don't go to church any longer. The fact is, I don't see much difference amongst these fellows. One is about as good as another. One says one thing and another says t'other thing. I don't see as it makes much difference in their living. I have made up my mind to do about as well as I know how, practice the golden rule, and trust the Lord for the rest." "Well," says the other man, "that is all very good doctrine if you do as well as you know how; but I don't believe you will." "I think," said he, "and I have been watching folks a good deal, that some kind of a form, even if it is foolish, is better than none, to help a man to be about right, and I advise you to go to church." "Well," said he, "there is something in that. I will think of it." Well, but he turned on the other man and said: "The golden rule, anyhow, will save anybody. If a man does to his neighbor as he would have the neighbor do to him, you may be sure that is a good thing anywhere, and will save him in any climate and in any world." "You are right," said the man, "but show me the fellow." We are so much occupied in speaking about the end, and, in having satisfied ourselves about the end at which we are all aiming, —the keeping of the golden rule, and the keeping of the commandments, the two great pillars of the law, — that we sometimes think that the road may take care of itself, and that if we keep the end in view it does not matter much whether we busy ourselves to walk in it or not; and we think somehow that the recognition of certain high truths and the perception of the right end is going to save us in spite of ourselves. I tell you it is plaguy hard work to get to heaven; it is plaguy hard work to keep the commandments; it is plaguy hard work either to love God or man down to the bottom of one's soul, and out to the uttermost rim of one's life and character. As Shakspeare, who said every thing, once said through the mouth of Portia: "If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces." "If wishes were horses beggars would ride." And a great many people think that because they see what is to be done, and acknowledge what is to be done, the thing will do itself, without their bringing their stubborn, their reluctant wills to bear upon it, with all the power and force which they can command, by the prayers of the night and the morning, and by the communion of their spirits with the only strengthening Source of life and of thought, God Almighty."

Blessings

A Gospel of Practical Righteousness...

2011-08-08T10:50:00.000-04:00

The next couple of days will feature Henry Bellows' address to the Semi-centennial meeting of the American Unitarian Association (1875)

REMARKS OF REV. HENRY W. BELLOWS, D.D.
My friends, as I was to say a word on Unitarianism considered as a gospel of practical righteousness, I have an idea that the best exhibition I can give of practical righteousness is to consider your disposition to go home, and to let you off from listeningoto a speech which I am very sure would add exceedingly little to the over-full vessel which you now carry. Indeed, I must only put the cork into the bottle, that you may safely carry home all this rich freight of thought and feeling that has been steadily, all the day, pouring into the vessels of your hearts and minds.
I wish I could have used an opportunity (which I do not mean to avail myself of) to say a word in the interest of that practical righteousness for which we sometimes think we stand. My own feeling is that " boasting is excluded" by the truly righteous man, and by practical Christians, and that it would neither become us, nor be according to the absolute truth, if we set ourselves up to be any better than our neighbors in respect of practical living. But we ought to be a great deal better. Our system grew out of the convictions of a deeper morality, which compelled us to change the whole theology of our sect to match a moral sense which refused to believe that the conscience of God was otherwise than higher and holier than the conscience of man, — to match it as the original sound matches the echo and the echo the sound. And if we changed our theology on grounds of moral conviction, and under the leadings of moral sense, the theology we have adopted ought to be more practically righteous in its roots than the theologies which have boasted themselves of being based upon conceptions of God that refused to be corrected by the conscience of man, and despised that very reason which is the only vehicle, or instrument, or medium by which any thing like rational intercommunication can take place between God and man."

sane, high and heroic...

2011-08-03T11:32:00.001-04:00

Longtime readers know that I have long been attracted to Stoicism, especially the later Roman style, which I find very congenial to the Boston Unitarian angle of vision. This from the Introduction to "Marcus Aurelius" by the Boston Lawyer and writer Henry Dwight Sedgwick (1861-1957)

"GOETHE'S saying, "Das Schaudern ist der Menschheit bestes Teil/' does not need the recommendation of his name; it carries its own authority. Among the qualities that go to make up character, a sensitiveness to the feeling of awe is the surest sign of the higher life. It lies deeper than other susceptibilities, sensuous or spiritual. Love, fame, or truth, have greater power to dazzle and overcome, but awe bestows the more abiding satisfaction; it sets a man apart from the many, it lifts him into communion with what for him is the highest, and ennobles his condition. This sense of awe is the fruit of the religious life, whether that life be lived in the solitude of the monastery, library, or wood, in the company of people consecrated to an ideal, or in the hurly-burly of the world. But the leaven of religion is not always at work, even in men of religious life. The spirit bloweth where and when it listeth. Sometimes the causes that lead men to religion are close at hand, bereavement, disappointment, sin; sometimes public calamities turn whole communities to the great fundamental question of life, Is there a God? and, sometimes, a religious genius comes with healing on his lips and rouses men, both singly and in multitudes, to perceive the beauty of a universe in which there is a God, and the desolation of a universe in which there is none. But religion does not lie at beck and call;

We cannot kindle when we will, The fire which in the heart resides. There are times when the temple of the soul is empty. We may acknowledge, with our intelligence, the supreme nobleness of that overpowering sense of reverence which turns a man in upon his heart and fills him with a consciousness of a presence, interpret that consciousness or that presence as we will; and yet we cannot conjure it to come. Awe lies beyond the reach of the human will. It is in these empty times, these barren moods, that there is need of some doctrine, some rule of action, that shall serve as makeshift to occupy the empty place which the sense of awe should occupy. Such a makeshift is the Stoic philosophy.

Under the long dominion of Christian dogma, chosen souls have experienced, in a sharper or duller degree, das Schaudern, the shudder of awe from the consciousness of what they believed to be a manifestation of the divine presence. But the Christian faith has lost its ancient authority, and though there are many cries, Lo here! Lo there! as yet no new religion has come to preach the gospel of what is to be. And it is not impossible, nor yet unlikely, that the principles underneath Stoic philosophy may still be of service today, to teach the pilgrim soul to find that support within himself which he does not find without.

The ancient Stoics were in the same ignorance as seekers today who are no longer Christians. They had no authoritative revelation, no word of God, to teach them the nature of the world in which they found themselves, no divine code of laws to tell them what to do. They looked about and beheld sorrow, disease, old age, maladjustments of all sorts, wars between states, civil strife, contention among neighbors, earthquakes, and tempests. Such was the world then; it is not very different now. In a world of this sort, what shall a man do to persuade himself that it is a world of order and not of chaos, that there is something in it other than vanity, that it has what the human heart, if the human heart had spiritual eyes, would pronounce to be a meaning? The Stoics were honest men and would not go beyond the evidence of the senses, they turned away from Plato's dream that the soul released from the body may behold divine beauty, and from Socrates' hope of communion with the heroic dead, and created what they called a philosophy, but what we may more properly call a religion, out of the world as their human senses saw it, a religion, austere and cold, but sane, high, and heroic."

Blessings

Old fogey and young iPad...

2011-07-28T14:27:00.000-04:00

So the children and I leave early tomorrow morning for our annual trip to South Dakota to visit my parents, brothers, sisters, grandfather, aunts, uncles,nephews and nieces...It's a wonderful trip but spendy so am looking to reduce luggage costs. Every year I agonize over what books to bring and the result is always a backpack full of books. This year...just the I pad. On it my:
Bible
current devotions: (Seneca, Day Unto Day)
Summer reading: Plutarch, and three books about Plutarch
Relaxing reading: Sir Walter Scott
All free and all in one small space. Just thought this old fogey should give credit where credit is due...

each day is a life...

2011-07-23T09:10:00.000-04:00

Today is the birthday of Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham. Born in Boston in 1793, Frothingham is, as much as anyone, the inspiration for this blog. His son, Octavius Brooks' biography of his father, "Boston Unitarianism" describes a way of being religious that I wanted (and still want) to preserve. For all posts Frothingham, go here. This from his sermon, "The Day's Duty."

"That every day is enough for its own evil, was a word of Jesus Christ. It was a word intended to raise men's hearts above undue and useless anxieties, and to allay the fever of worldly care. It has always been received as true. It has been repeated, perhaps, as often as any of the sayings of our Lord. And there is another word that may be grafted on this. It is, that every day is enough for its own duty. Let this, too, be received as true. It has a like spirit with the other. It is suited to withdraw the thoughts from a vague futurity, and collect them upon a space that can easily be surveyed, judged of, commanded. A day is one of the small circles of time. We can lay out its work, though we cannot predict its fortunes. We can remember how it has been spent, whatever may have come to pass in it. We soon run through its course, whether brighter or darker, whether employed to good purposes or thrown foolishly or wickedly away. It is capable of holding as much duty as our minds can well compass. He who fills each of them well, as they pass and are recorded, is wanting in nothing. Let us, in our present reflections, separate this portion of our lives from their great sum, and see if what has now been affirmed of it has been affirmed truly. This discourse will attempt to illustrate the fact, that what "the duty of every day" requires is just that amount of service which God requires, and which we can with the most profit set before us as the direct object of our endeavors.

We hear it often said, that life is but a day. It is said to express the shortness of our stay upon the earth. It is said, for the most part, sorrowfully. Let us reverse it, and say with more striking truth that each day is a life."

cookery begins...

2011-07-21T10:34:00.000-04:00

It's a little on the warm side here and in a good part of the country. This from Henry David Thoreau...

"By proper Shelter and Clothing we legitimately retain our own internal heat; but with an excess of these, or of Fuel, that is, with an external heat greater than our internal, may not cookery be properly said to begin?"

Yes it may. Stay cool and
Blessings

a very important thing to do

2011-07-19T14:31:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, I took the children (who were very good sports) to the new Winnie the Pooh movie. Was it a great movie? I don't suppose it was. But I loved it. It had "a very important thing to do" and the moral was to take more notice of helping others than your own stomach. And, it was Winnie the Pooh.

Blessings

life a solemn trust...

2011-07-15T07:50:00.000-04:00

This quite wonderful prayer "For the Use of Daily Blessings" from the Unitarian devotional:
THE
ALTAR AT HOME:
PBAYERS
FOR
THE FAMILY AND THE CLOSET.
by
CLERGYMEN IN AND NEAR BOSTON (1855)

"The heavens declare the glory of God ; and the firmament uhoweth his handiwork.
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night show eth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
Their line hath gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit to the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from his heat.
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever : the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.
Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me : then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.

God over all, forever blessed, we would worship thee in reverence, and gratitude, and joy. As the sun in the heavens doth rise and shine down upon our dwellings, so may the light of thy truth and thy Jove rise and shine upon our souls. Thou dost bring the dawn out of' darkness; grant unto us also that true knowledge of thee which shall enlighten us in all our ways. Thou dost beset us behind and before, numbering the very hairs of our heads, giving unto us discerning minds, and offering unto us that Spirit which maketh us truly free. Praise unto thee, thou everlasting Helper, for thine infinite compassions. May they entreat us every day to consecrate ourselves unto thee, and may they remind us that our life is a solemn trust.
Known unto thee, Father, are all thy works from the foundation of the world,— the duties, the perplexities and the joys, which are appointed for each day of thy children's lot. Prepare us, 0 thou, who knowest our mortal frame, for all that shall befall us, that in our prosperity we may not be high-minded; that in our adversity we may be drawn very closely unto him who pitieth us every day, and doth encompass our weakness with his almighty power. Earnestly do we seek of thee the forgiveness of those sins that have darkened our past lives. Enable us, in the humblest reliance upon the only Mediator, to build again that which is fallen down, and to walk in ways more excellent. Keep us from presumptuous sins, and cleanse us from secret faults. Establish us in that law of the Lord which converts the soul, and in those statutes of the Lord which rejoice the heart. Let there be health and peace in this dwelling. Save us from foolish anxieties. May we believe that the Lord will provide. Striving each one of us to bear his own burden, may we do good to our brethren as we shall have opportunity, and freely give as we have freely received.
We commend the young to him who, whilst he was yet with us in bodily presence, took little children into his loving arms. May they feel that the gracious Lord still loveth them, and is ready to send to their hearts the Holy Spirit of consolation and peace. 0 God, be very near to our kindred and friends. We would ever remember them in our morning prayer. 0 thou, unto whom all souls are present, hear the prayers of the afflicted; watch over those who travel by land or by water, and may the sweet influences of the Gospel gladden and redeem many hearts. We ask it through him who is evermore the way. Amen."

Blessings and have a good day

the merchant princes of Boston...

2011-07-14T08:33:00.001-04:00

Today marks the anniversary of the death of Nathan Appleton (1779-1861)enrtrepreneur, industrialist, philanthropist, and dedicated Unitarian. This is how Daniel Walker Howe described him in his "The Political Culture of the American Whigs."

"The class of which Appleton was a representative has often been loosely called 'aristocratic' by contemporaries as well as by historians. It would seem more accurate to term it a bourgeois patriciate, not only because of its urban base and commercial origins, but also because of certain typically bourgeois values it endorsed, like sexual restraint, education, and self-improvement in general...

Appleton lived up to the ideals of his class, He did not merely patronize religion and learning with money; he devoteed effort to them himself. He was a faithful parishioner of William Ellery Channing's church on Federal Street and took his religion seriously enough to engage an Anglican clergyman in public theological debate...

Appleton came to typify the Boston patriciate in the minds of friend and foe. Francis Bowen, an admiring Harvard economist and moral philosopher, called Appleton 'one of the most eminent living representatives of a highly honored class, the merchant princes of Boston...

Blessings

compassion and the "utter overthrow of Trinitarian theology"...

2011-07-13T06:46:00.000-04:00

This from "The Unitarian Handbook of Scriptural Illustrations and Expositions" compiled by Robert Spears, and published in 1862. I would maybe have a little more compassion for the Trinitarians but still a nifty statement of Scriptural Unitarianism...

"THE INFINITE AND UNPURCHASED LOVE OF GOD.
"God is love, good to all, the Father of us all; not the God of the Jews only, but also the God of the Gentiles; exercising loving kindness and tender mercy, the Father of mercy, from -whom every good and perfect gift cometh, kind unto the unthankful and the evil, great in goodness and rich in mercy, whose mercy is everlasting and whose compassions fail not, merciful and gracious, always ready to forgive." So the divine page glows with his goodness and love. How degrading, therefore, are the views inculcated in the name of Christianity by many of the churches; limiting his compassion to a few of his creatures, representing his pardoning mercy as purchased by the blood of his Son, making mortal nan more just than God, and a finite being more benevolent than his Maker. This section of Scriptural passages which might have been greatly increased, sets forth the Unitarian faith in the attributes of God, to the utter overthrow of Trinitarian theology.
God, A God Of Tender Mercy And Loving Kindness.— *' The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth: keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin."—Ex. xxxiv. 7. "The 'Lord is long suffering and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression."—Numb. xiv. 18. "Thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness."—-Neh. ix. 17. "Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy loving kindnesses; for they have been ever of old."— Psalm xxv. 6. "How excellent is thy loving kindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings."—Psalm xxxvi. 7. "Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O Lord: let thy loving kindness and thy truth continually preserve me."—Psalm xl. 11. "Hear me, O Lord; for thy loving kindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies."—Psalm lxix. 16. "But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, long suffering and plenteous in mercy and truth."—Psalm lxxxvi. 15. "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion."—Psalm cxi. 4. "The earth, O Lord, is full of thy- mercy."—Psalm cxix. 64. "Thou art good, and doest good."—Psalm cxix. 68. "Great are thy tender mercies, O Lord."—Psalm cxix. 156. "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion: slow to anger, and of great mercy."—Psalm cxlv. 8. "The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works."—Psalm cxlv. 9. "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven, for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."—Matt. v. 45. "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him."—Matt. vii. 11."

Blessings

A priest of Buddha...

2011-07-12T06:55:00.002-04:00

Happy birthday Henry David Thoreau...

John Weiss on Thoreau in 1865...

"His countenance had not a line upon it expressive of ambition or discontent; the affectional emotions had not fretted at it. He went about like a priest of Buddha who expects to arrive soon at the summit of a life of contemplation."

Blessings

JQA

2011-07-11T07:46:00.000-04:00

It's the Birthday of John Quincy Adams, fascinating member of America's First Family. We would be less than we are if not for them...

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.". JQA

the solemn crow...

2011-07-09T09:06:00.001-04:00

William Bourne Oliver Peabody, Unitarian Minister, naturalist, poet, and lover of birds, was born on this day in 1799. This from his "Biography of Birds."

"It is surprising to see how few of all the birds which annually visit us are known by name, and how little their habits are understood. Most natives of New England are acquainted with the bluejay, one of the earliest of our visitors, who comes sounding his penny trumpet as a herald of the spring, and either amuses himself by playing pranks upon other more serious birds, or entertains them by acting, to the life, the part of an angry Frenchman. Every miller and vagrant fisherman knows the belted kingfisher, who sits for hours upon his favorite dead branch, looking with his calm, bright eye to the lowest depth of the waters. The robin also makes himself welcome, not only by the tradition of the kindness shown by his European relation to the children in the wood, but by his hearty whistle, lifted up as if he knew that all would be thankful to hear that the winter is over and gone, and his familiarity with man, whereby he shows his belief, that they who least deserve confidence are sometimes made better by being trusted. The solemn crow, who is willing to repose the same confidence in man, taking only the additional precaution of keeping out of his reach; the quizzical bobolink, or ricebunting, who tells man, in so many words, that he cares nothing about him, — not he; the swallow, that takes his quarters in our barns, or the one that passes up and down our chimneys with a noise like thunder, the purple martin, that offers to pay his house-rent by keeping insects from our gardens; the snow-bird, that comes riding from the arctic circle upon the winter storm; and the baltimore, or golden-robin, that glances like a flame of fire through the green caverns of foliage, — will almost complete the list of those which are familiarly known to man."

(Elizabeth at "Little House on a Hillside" has a wonderful series of bird pictures here)

Blessings

softening of the nature...

2011-07-08T10:48:00.001-04:00

My reading in Plutarch this morning included this:

"Verily, among all the benefits which men derive from the favour of the Muses, none other is so great as that softening of the nature which is produced by culture and discipline, the nature being induced by culture to take on moderation and cast off excess"

Which put me in mind of the description of a certain kind of Unitarianism (Boston Unitarianism) as described by O. B. Frothingham in his book "Boston Unitarianism 1820-1850"

"But it should be added, that the faith we are concerned with laid stress on the old virtues of private character—purity, moderation, kindness, hospitality, generosity, peacefulness, hopefulness, humility, truth —rather than on the philosophical foundations of belief, or the changes necessary to perfect society. Its whole purpose was to create good men, trusting to their influence for the regeneration of mankind, avoiding whatever, by causing disturbance, might alienate, discourage, or divert men from self-examination and self-discipline. It was certain that the multitude cared nothing for philosophical speculation, and it was equally certain that any discussion of social themes would arouse disaffection. The field of Christian character -was wide, and its elements were well understood and cordially respected."

Blessings

a religious way to live...

2011-07-05T06:42:00.000-04:00

From the category easier said than done...

Plutarch from his Life of Pericles...

"acquiesce in the present without fault-finding, remember the past with thankfulness, and meet the future without fear or suspicion, with hopes cheerful and bright."

And from Ralph Waldo Emerson...

My whole philosophy, and it is very real, teaches acquiescence and optimism."

Blessings

an immortal halo of glory...

2011-07-04T09:49:00.001-04:00

This from James Freeman Clarke...

"MEN in whom the ideas of the State are incarnate, renew once more its decaying life. Good men save the State, but they can only save it when other men are capable of being moved and led by their examples. Hannibal could not save Carthage; Marcus Antoninus could not save the Roman Empire; Demosthenes could not save Greece; and Jesus Christ himself could not save Jerusalem from destruction. Nations can go too far to be saved.
The great hope of this land is in the fact that the mass of the people mean right, and, unless misled by demagogues, will do right. But, for this hope to be realized, all Christians and patriots must work together. Then we shall have in place of a nation hampered and fettered by evil institutions a great and noble Christian republic, with its face lifted to the future, and the rising sun of coming centuries of human progress glowing around its brow as an immortal halo of glory."

Blessings

specialists in virtue...

2011-06-29T13:57:00.001-04:00

This may be the finest summary of the Boston Unitarian "angle of vision" that I have yet come across. Andrew Preston Peabody in his "Moral Philosophy"

"If it be asked what constitutes moral beauty, I hardly know a better answer than might be given in the one word moderation, if you will take into view all that the word means. It is derived from modus, " measure;" and in its proper use it signifies not imperfection, or slowness, or backwardness, but the due proportion in life of all the elements that go to make up a good life. Of virtue there can be no excess; and we have had, as I believe, the ideal of perfect virtue actualized but once on earth. But individual virtues may exist in such excess, so out of due proportion, as to cease to be virtues. The beauty of Christ's character consists, in great part, in its perfect balance. Probably among those who most opposed him there were not only bad men and hypocrites, but specialists in virtue*— men who nursed some one virtue out of due proportion, and held others in inferior esteem. Were he living on earth now with no external token of Christhood, among his strongest opponents would be some of the extremists in morals who call themselves by his name. I am inclined to think that their types of virtue would find as little sympathy from him as he would show with the vices that they denounce."

Blessings

He fills, he bounds...

2011-06-28T07:36:00.002-04:00

This on "balance," by Andrew Preston Peabody (often excerpted in these pages) who records this reminiscence of Asahel Stearns, Congressman from Mass. and later Harvard Law Professor...

"Professor Stearns was one of those terete men, in whose moral nature there are no prominences, simply because there are no depressions; who therefore leave a blessed memory, without specific details to be remembered. I have, however, one reminiscence of him which I like to recall, and am glad to record. When I first went to the White Mountains, it was in a stage-coach with Mr. and Mrs. Stearns, two young collegians, and two other young persons, their friends and mine. The eighth passenger was an elderly clergyman of a type now happily extinct, but which my older readers may recognize, — of that class of men who thought it their duty to vilify nature, and to treat contemptuously the beauty and grandeur of the outward universe. It ought to be said that he was not on a journey of pleasure, but on a mission from a certain anti-Catholic association which threatened great things, but had a very brief and inefficient life. As we reached one after another of the grand points of view on our route, my young friends were jubilant with delight and admiration, while our clerical companion glowered and growled in his corner. At length, when we came in full sight of Mount Washington, and there was a spontaneous shout of rapture, he exclaimed, as angrily as if he had been personally insulted, "How mean and paltry must all this be in the eyes of Him who weighs the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance!" Professor Stearns rejoined calmly and reverently, in Pope's couplet, —
"' To Him no high, no low, no great, no small:
He fills, he bounds, connects and equals all.'"

Blessings

an expressive faculty...

2011-06-24T06:57:00.001-04:00

The historian Daniel Walker Howe, author most recently of the monumental "What Hath God Wrought?" wrote perhaps the definitive work on the philosophy of the Boston Unitarians. His "Unitarian Conscience: Harvard Moral Philosophy, 1805-1861" was and is a very important part of my development as a Unitarian. An excerpt...

"If there were a single conception that dominated Harvard Unitarian thought, psychological, social, and religious, it was the conception of harmony. The Unitarian conscience was not a repressive, but an expressive faculty; not to crush, but to harmonize, regulate, and balance was the task of the ruling power. In twentieth-century psychological terminology, the Unitarians regarded a firm sense of values as essential to an integrated personality. Only when a man was following the guidance of prudence and the moral sense was he free...They frequently led their congregations in the contemplation of the balanced character of a virtuous man. To be overcome with passion was, in Unitarian opinion, to be enslaved by a usurping tyrant."

Blessings

time for the seed...

2011-06-22T09:09:00.004-04:00

A message from J.F.W Ware to those attending General Assembly:

"The American Unitarian Association held its Fiftyfourth Annual Business Meeting, in Hollis-street Church, on the morning of Tuesday, May 27, 1879. (the following words are from Ware)

Friends, this is the day of our opportunity. Do not ask whether the fields be ripe to the harvest. If it be not the time for the sickle, it is the time for the seed, and without the seed the sickle shall hang and rust through the eras of eternity. The seed is good. It wants sowers. The field is broad; but we have dropped sparingly, only in a corner here and there. Go ye out, all of you, into the broad acres between, and fling it broad, fearing neither bird of the air nor tread of foot. Broadcast it everywhere. Living here, you do not know the value, the power, of your faith. You do not dare to trust it to its God-anointed work; you do not know, you do not believe, in what it can do, what it is doing. You do not realize its worth, its power, its vitality. And you cannot know these till you see for yourselves what it does when you get it out of its ruts, away from antecedent and precedent; from handsome church and silk gown; from the respectabilities, the graces, the antecedents; — till you get it among the far away, and the ignoraut and poor. There is no man who has stood at an outpost of duty, no man who has taken it among the lowly, but could tell you what this faith we think too little of can do, only it be properly applied: how it makes waste places blossom; how it is felt to be as a very revelation from on high; how hungering and thirsting recognize, accept, and are blessed by it. It has a mighty career before it, only you are wise and true. Do not lay the burden upon the officers of your Association, but take hold of it according to your several ability, clergy and laity. The work has got to be done by the temper of the whole body, by unity within the whole body. Let every unoccupied clergyman put himself, by Sunday next, at some mission-post among the people, and every layman consecrate some part of his owning to carry the gospel just where it is most wanted, and our next anniversary will be glad with hallelujahs over the new promise of the kingdom."

intoxicated with delight...

2011-06-21T09:03:00.000-04:00

Seasons and sound were deeply important to Henry David Thoreau. In his Journal he wrote,

"All sights and sounds are seen and heard both in time and eternity. And when the eternity of any sight or sound strikes the eye or ear-they are intoxicated with delight."

And this on the sounds of summer from "A Natural History of Massachusetts"

"In May and June the woodland quire is in full tune, and given the immense spaces of hollow air, and this curious human ear, one does not see how the void could be better filled.

Each summer sound
Is a summer round."

Have a blessed summer

a good husband...

2011-06-18T07:53:00.003-04:00

Some modestly offered, pre-Father's Day, ancient advice for (ex) Congressman Weiner from Plutarch's life of Cato Major...

"He was...a good father, considerate husband, and a household manager of no mean talent, nor did he give only a fitful attention to this, as a matter of little or no importance...he thought it more praiseworthy to be a good husband than a great senator..."

blessings

the clear faced man of God...

2011-06-15T11:52:00.000-04:00

William Gannett on a hero of mine, Rufus Ellis (often excerpted in these pages...

"In the long and honorable line of its [the First Church] ministers, there could have been none who more visibly illustrated the great Beatitude than Rufus Ellis. A certain something in him always suggested spotlessness; it was in his face, his dress, his manner, his high-bred courtesy, his ever-kindly manliness. A man to be remembered as one remembers some clear blue day of special grace and beauty; a minister who enriched his people with himself, — even the best of the sermon reaching them at least as much by eyes as by the ear. . . . We greatly need such men among us, — men whose presence and emphasis suggest religion, the deep things of the spirit, rather than their theology and christology, those shallower things of the spirit, while none the less they love these last and let us know it. We need such "conservatives "... among us. Not, then, for all was Rufus Ellis a prophet as to the minor matters; but for all he was the clear-faced man of God, for whom his city and the world are permanently a little better,—a nobleness to miss on Boston streets."

blessings

Thou sluggard...

2011-06-11T06:55:00.001-04:00

This from today's devotion in "The Altar At Home" published in 1873 by the American Unitarian Association (and often excerpted in these pages.)

"Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. — Prov. vi. 6.

"See that little bee that goes laden with honey to his hive: does he not reproach you? See that little ant carrying its burden to its hiding-place: does not even it reproach you? Go to work and do something, and be in harmony with creation about you."

"God is living, working still;
All things work and move:
Work, would'st thou their beauty feel,
And thy Maker's love."

Labor is man's great function. He is nothing, he can be nothing, he can achieve nothing, fulfil nothing, without working. — Dewey.

Work for some good, be it ever so slowly!
Labor! all labor is noble and holy.
Frances Osgood

And work: for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts. — Haggai ii. i."

Blessings

2011-06-08T08:38:00.003-04:00

This from Plutarch's biography of Solon. Seems a fitting description of the Boston Unitarian way of life...

"But I grow old ever learning new things."
(for more bits from Plutarch, see my summer reading blog here)

blessings

the pulse beats of devotional feeling...

2011-06-05T05:38:00.004-04:00

This,the first part of Andrew Preston Peabody's "The Discipline of Life," (from the volume "Christian Belief and Life" 1875) an excellent warning not to miss the forest through the trees...

"THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me."—Psalm cxxxviii.8.
A FRIEND said to me one Sunday, on the way from church, " How sad it is that we cannot devote ourselves more constantly to our own spiritual culture! There are so many utterly unspiritual things to be done or gone through with, that it is really very little time that we can give to the great work of this life, — our preparation for a higher and better life." This would have been well said, were it not that the very condition of things complained of is a providential necessity, of God's appointment, and therefore undoubtedly better for us than any method that we might deem preferable. If the soul and God and heaven are not fictions, we are constrained to believe that the Divine Providence orders our discipline here with a view to our surest nurture and our highest good, that its school is our best school, its designated way the best way for us.
I doubt whether the concentrated devotion to the soul for which the devout often yearn is the fit mode of educating the soul. Probably, even to the most religious mind, the cloister has never been so favorable to the growth of piety as the duties of an active life or of a Christian home would have been. A good man somewhat given to cant, meeting Wilberforce one day, said to him, "Brother, how is it now with your soul?" and was shocked beyond measure by the philanthropist's reply, "I have been so busy about those poor negroes, that I had forgotten I had a soul." Yet there can be no doubt that by means of "those poor negroes " Wilberforce's soul had been growing a great deal faster than that of his friend, who had perhaps spent half his time in counting the pulse-beats of devotional feeling."

blessings

a beautiful proportion...

2011-06-02T07:08:00.001-04:00

The Unitarian minister Cyrus Bartol said this of William Phillips Tilden at the latter's 70th Birthday celebration.

"We know him, with his radical thought, conservative heart, courageous speech, reverent and spiritual mind, uniting all extremes in a beautiful proportion."

One could be described in worse ways...

Blessings

Easter morning rays...

2011-06-01T07:28:00.001-04:00

Long a favorite of Boston Unitarians (including this one) Plutarch is the subject of my summer reading project this year. I have read a good part of the "Lives" and the "Moralia" already but in my usual disjointed and undisciplined way. Each summer, I set myself a reading project in the often futile hope of bringing some discipline to my reading. This year I am going to keep a blog "commonplace book" of my reading-if you want bits of Plutarch (and who doesn't) go here. This morning, Andrew Preston Peabody on Plutarch...

"But the "Lives," though the best known, are but a small part of Plutarch's works. The treatises included under the general title of " Moralia " are, most of them, on distinctively moral subjects, and cover a very wide range of topics, discussing at"~length what are commonly, though wrongly, called the minor morals, that is, the evils that infest and disturb the happiness of families and of social life, and their opposite virtues, and no less full and thorough on the reputedly larger subjects usually treated in works on moral philosophy. Thus we have, on the one hand, essays on Idle Talking, Curiosity, Self-Praise, and the like; on the other hand, such grave themes as "The Benefits that a Man may derive from his Enemies," and " The Best Means of Self-Knowledge." There is in these essays a blending of common sense and of keen ethical insight; and so little does human nature change with its surroundings, that a very large proportion of Plutarch's counsels, cautions, and precepts are as closely applicable to our own time as if they had been written yesterday. There are, too, letters of consolation, rich, sweet, and tender, and breathing so firm a faith in immortality as to be hardly transcended by the most glowing utterances of St. Paul when the crown of martyrdom seemed close at hand. There is a letter to his wife on the death of a daughter two years old during his absence from home, which contains very little that a Christian father might not have written, and which seems to me to surpass in elevation and purity of thought and feeling, in spirituality and heavenly-mindedness, all other writings of the kind that I have ever seen. I cannot but feel that somehow Easter-morning rays had struggled through the dense Boeotian atmosphere, and that Christ had spoken to the receptive hearts of those whose "eyes were holden so that they could not see him."

Blessings

I must pray...

2011-05-29T17:37:00.000-04:00

This from William Phillips Tilden on the agonizing decision to support the American Civil War.
Deeply powerful...

"Autobiography of William Phillips Tilden

Never can I forget the intense excitement and deep solemnity of the day when the news of the attack on Fort Sumter first reached us. It was as if a wayward child had smitten its own mother on the cheek,—-nay, fired a bullet in her heart. Each felt the death-dealing missile as aimed at him. "Then you and I and all of us fell down, and bloody treason flourished over us." Over Main Street the stars and stripes waved slowly and solemnly as if heavy with the tears of a nation's grief. It seemed to me as if I never saw "our flag" till then. The insult offered to it gave it a new meaning and preciousness. As a disciple of Jesus, I had felt myself forbidden to fight even in self-defence. But here something far higher and greater than self was in peril. Not I, but my country, was assailed. I would not fight for my own life, for I would sooner lose that than take another's; but how about our national, or common mother's, life? That was the question now. I could not answer it at once. I had been a non-resistant for years. I could not change in a day. I must be silent, I must think, I must pray. I must go up into the mount alone, and ask counsel of Him who guides nations as well as individuals in paths they know not. All the week I was in mental agony. What should I say to my parishioners on the coming Sunday? The question was yet unanswered when I went into my pulpit, worn with anxious thought, and told them all my struggles. I just opened my heart to them, and let them see how it was torn by conflicting ideas and emotions. My anti-slavery convictions had not been deeper than my anti-war convictions; but here was no question of self-defence, but the defence of great national principles, involving the liberty and highest welfare of millions of people. I must wait till I could adjust myself to the new conditions.
The people received the sermon kindly, for they knew I was honest; and I think they respected me none the less for not being hasty in changing the conviction of years. I did not have to wait long. A new sense of the value and necessity of a just government broke upon me, until I saw clearly that, when our national life was assailed with brutal violence, and especially for the purpose of perpetuating sectional slavery and making it national, violence must be met by violence, or the republic would fall, and Senator Toombs would carry out his threat of "calling the roll of his slaves in the shadow of Bunker Hill monument"
I came to this conviction, which seems so plain to those who had never thought otherwise, only through great tribulation and anguish of spirit. It seemed like going down from some serene mountain height into the valley of the shadow of death. But it was there the great and final battle with slavery was to be fought; and as I heard the bugle-call, and saw our truest and bravest men fall into line, and leave all for the great conflict, not in defence of self, but in defence of national honor and life, I felt that it was right, and that a God of justice would not suffer our cause to fail.
But I was spoiled for the war. I could not enter into it with any heart. I had served too many years under another banner to become enthusiastic. I bowed to the stern necessity, and read the lesson so difficult to learn,— that God has many ways of accomplishing his purposes, and may in great national crises be as truly served on the battle-field as in the house of prayer"

blessings

such bravery, Christian bravery...

2011-05-27T09:40:00.001-04:00

Excerpts from the "Harvard Memorial Biographies" entry on Henry May Bond who served with the 45th Mass. and, finally, with the "Harvard Regiment" (20th Mass.) during the Civil War. The last full measure of devotion...

"With a keen susceptibility to all the pleasures of the senses, he was perfectly pure and temperate. General Macy says of him, " He was the purest man I ever knew." He knew where to turn for strength. In his Junior year he joined the Church; his father's pastor and warm friend, James Freeman Clarke, becoming his also. He carried into his relations with the Church the same frank kindliness, the same hearty earnestness, that he showed in the other relations of life. His religion, like all else in him, was practical. Mr. Clarke summed it up in a few words, as " a simple honest purpose to do right and be right."...

After graduating in 1859, he became partner in the house of Walker, Wise, & Co., booksellers and publishers in Boston. When war threatened, he with his brother William joined the Cadets, in order to prepare themselves to do their part...

he...won the hearts of his men, and left stamped upon them the memory of a Christian soldier. As one of them said on his return to a friend of the family, inquiring about the Bonds:—
" Lieutenant Bond was a good officer and a brave man, and the men liked him; but Orderly Bond the men would follow anywhere. He was a brave man; and such bravery, Christian bravery!"
He was first under fire at Kinston. He writes: —
" I had sometimes expressed a fear that I might prove myself a coward in battle, but I was determined, if my will could effect anything, my friends should not be thus disgraced. The last few moments before going into the Kinston fight I felt perfectly calm, and was exhorting my men, whenever I got a chance, to keep cool and take a deliberate aim; my only prayer being, as we advanced into line of battle, that which I have heard our Mr. Clarke say never failed to be heard,' God help me! — help me to keep my selfpossession for the sake of my men.' I somehow felt as if my prayer was answered immediately ; for I felt perfectly cool and fearless, although we were led into a nasty place, if there ever was one. .... I could not help feeling a little pleased to overhear some of my men say when I passed by their camp-fire at night, without their knowing that I was near, (this is strictly private, mother,) ' Sergeant Bond fought bully !' Pardon my seeming vanity in repeating this remark (which I dare say will not wholly please you), but it struck me with a sort of astonishment to hear that I had done anything to call forth the praise of such a plucky set of fellows as we have in our company."

To a friend and brother officer of the Forty-fifth he writes, April 13th: —
" As for myself, in the hour of personal danger, I am strong and courageous only in the faith that, should it please God to take my life while in the discharge of what I deem to be my highest duty here on earth, all will be well with me. Coward as I am by nature, I should be worth nothing either to my friends or my country without that faith in God, however short I fall of doing what I know to be right."...

In the terrible battle of the Wilderness, May 6, 1864, Henry was wounded in the jaw. General Macy writes: —
" So faithful to what he considered his duty was he, that after receiving this wound, he sought me to report before leaving, subjecting his life to a thousand chances to do so, as he was walking through a storm of bullets. I however saw him coming towards me, and made a sign for him to go to the rear, which he did, and where I joined him in a few moments. Through two hours of such fighting Henry was of great service to me."
He wrote this letter from the hospital at Fredericksburg, Monday, May 9,1864: —
" My Dear Mother, — I fear, before you see this letter, you may hear from other sources that I have been wounded. But there has
been no possible means in my power of sending word to you
My right jaw-bone is fractured; to what extent, other than that it is not crushed into little pieces, the doctor could not tell. The ball
entered my cheek and lodged against the jaw-bone I think I
am very fortunate in my wound, when I look at the frightfully mangled bodies around me. I am debarred the privilege of eating at present (taking only liquids, such as beef-tea, &c). I long for ice-cream to quench the fever; we fortunately have ice here, which is a great relief."
Yet despite the fever, he would not touch a lemon given him by a dear friend who happened upon him while engaged in hospital duty, but gave it to those more severely wounded than himself. To this same friend he expressed his regret that his wound should take him from the field when there was so much need of men. He never lost his spirits, and amused his wounded comrades around him by making wry faces at them.
On Wednesday, May 11th, about three, P. M., he left Fredericksburg in an ambulance for Belle Plain, some eight miles distant. At two o'clock the next morning they had only reached White Oak Church, a distance of about five miles. Here the ambulance was attacked by Mosby's guerillas. Henry was sitting on the front seat with the driver; Captain Mali and Captain Perkins of his regiment were inside, being very severely wounded. The order was given by the guerillas to get out and unhitch the horses. Before those who were able could obey, they were fired into. Henry then asked Captain Mali for his pistol; but before he received it he was shot through the body from behind, the ball entering between the shoulder-blades, passing just above the heart, and coming out through the left lung and breast.
He fell forward to the ground, and there he lay during the night. The horrors of that night let its own darkness cover. Captain Mali says, " I never felt so bad in my life before; both Perkins and myself being unable to move, and he lying dying four or five feet from us." Sergeant Dunn of the Massachusetts Fifty-sixth found him in the morning insensible from loss of blood; and though at first thought dead, he was at length placed in an ambulance, and had his wound dressed. His father, who had gone to the front to attend to the wounded upon the first news of the battle, met him about two miles beyond Belle Plain at ten o'clock that morning. He was taken on board a transport to Washington, and carried to the house of a friend. His father, warned by the surgeon that the time was short, said to him, " Whatever may be the issue, I know from your life and your letters that you are prepared for it." He replied, " I don't know as to that, father; I have always tried to do my duty." His father says: —
" He then went on, as calmly as if I were visiting him and about to leave, to give me kind and affectionate messages for his friends. .... He gave a most beautiful one for his mother, which I most deeply regret that I did not remember verbatim. He said she was the only mother he had ever known; and had she been his own, could not have been more kind and loving to him, or have had his love more fully. After this I restrained him from talking as much as possible."
He had wished for his mother's and his sisters' hands to dress his wound ; and his wish was, at least partly, fulfilled. His youngest sister and a favorite cousin were with him at the last. He knew them both and greeted them in his own cheery way. As always, he was thoughtful for others, and not for himself. Even in his wanderings he spoke only of the regiment or the wounded; no word of his own sufferings, no word of reproach against his murderers.
There was hardly a hope from the first; and on Saturday, May 14th, at ten minutes before two, P. M., he breathed his last."

Blessings

go and be dumb...

2011-05-25T06:27:00.001-04:00

Ralph Waldo Emerson from "Literary Ethics" (Happy Birthday RWE)

"Come now, let us go and be dumb. Let us sit with our hands on our mouths, a long, austere, Pythagorean lustrum. Let us live in corners, and do chores and suffer, and weep, and drudge, with eyes and hearts that love the Lord. Silence, seclusion, austerity, may pierce deep into the grandeur and secret of our being, and so diving, bring up out of secular darkness the sublimities of the moral constitution."

Blessings